The Chapman Family/Frankie & The Heartstrings/Little Comets – Stockton Georgian Theatre

The Chapman Family

February 15th 2010

The Georgian Theatre plays host to three strikingly separate bands this evening as part of the NME Awards show series. Rotating the order every night in the tour’s other shows in York and Leeds; it is the turn of Frankie & The Heartstrings to get proceedings underway tonight.

Striding on with assured confidence, the hotly-tipped act from Sunderland waste no time in pressing their case. In Frankie, they possess a front man who resembles Morrissey in the foppish-nature of his styling and Paul Smith in his bounding energy. Their songs are a potent combination of angular-pop guitar melody and regionalised dialect vocals. The Teesside crowd appears enthusiastic and provides the encouragement that it is apparent the band never really needed in all honesty. Former Kenickie member, Pete Gofton (AKA J Xaverre) provides some energetic guitar and keyboard work alongside the rest of the band who are all on fine form. An endearing performance which leaves us intrigued to hear more, a band to be keeping tabs on for sure.

Next up are Newcastle-based band Little Comets, who are also an act with their respective stars on the rise (pun very much intended). A stagecraft unlike no other, they have some old blue rope of the sort you used to make a ‘tarzee’ with as a child with various percussion hanging down, they are certainly engaging. Their singer appears to lose a few pounds in sweat due to the oversized fleece-jumper he sports but it doesn’t affect his energetic performance. Their highlight track is soon-to-be single Joanna, a pop-tune that is likely to win them even more plaudits.

Wrapping up the whole occasion are homecoming boys, The Chapman Family. This lot are scary, seriously. Their set is a tour de force through the macabre of dark-rock music and it is all the brainchild of the severely imposing singer, Kingsley Chapman. Stalking onto the stage with a jaw line that looks stronger than Joe Calzaghe, he launches the band into their first song and it is LOUD. In the way it should be, of course, and there were more than a few raised eyebrows in the crowd which was populated with a fair share of adolescent youngsters more used to the fey pop of Frankie & The Heartstrings than the brutality of The Chapman Family.

We find ourselves unable to take our eyes off the band, switching between the members trying to work out exactly what to make of them. Pop Chapman provides an energetic performance with some deep fuzz bass, throwing himself about the stage that amplifies the atmosphere. By the close of the set, Kingsley is frantically wrapping the microphone cable around his neck in ever-tightening circles whilst on his knees in an apparent stage-suicide. The difference is that he means it. Recent singles ‘Kids’ and ‘Virgins’ provide the highlights of the set and the band are playing with voracity as if each song is to be their last before someone tells them that they’re going to pull the plug. Powerful, gripping and ultimately different, The Chapman Family do not disappoint. They are performing at SXSW next month and we predict they’ll go down a storm. If Kingsley is still alive by that point…

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