The Engineers

The Engineers - Having read a listing for an Engineers gig in London calling the band nu-gazer and being a big fan of the whole "shoegazer" genre, I went along to the Night & Day in Manchester to see what they were like. I was expecting a band that were reminiscent of Ride or My Bloody Valentine with a more modern twist.

Instead, what I got was a band that sounded EXACTLY like you would have expected a shoegazer band to sound like in about 1990. Not that I'm complaining. The songs were all about that warm and enveloping blanket of swirling guitars and hazy, soothing vocals that made me wish I had a comfy chair and a hot water bottle so I could curl up and just let the whole thing surround me completely. The band were technically proficient, the songs tended to blend together a bit, but that's just the sound.

On stage, they seemed confident, but made use of rather blinding backlighting (I've not seen the likes of it since The Jesus & Mary Chain or The Stone Roses c. 1994/5) so all you could see were their silhouettes. The drummer was completely enshrouded in smoke and darkness. It made for an interesting effect, but I'm still seeing spots.

It wasn't one of those jump up and down and scream a lot gigs, but they did achieve the intended effect from their show, which was to enshroud the audience from head to toe with their guitars and make that the focus, rather than their on-stage personas.

On a side note, the opening band, Clor, while they ventured dangerously near prog-rock territory, are also worth checking out. They were playing quirky and unsually structured pop songs with weird keyboard noises and Flaming Lips-like vocals and were highly entertaining.