NORTHUMBRIAN MUSIC
NIGHTS
What we said about
KNIGHTS OF
PASSION
KNIGHTS OF PASSION
repay nights of practise
with a superb Music Night
If you build it, they will come. Such is the mantra that the local promotions organisation, Northumbrian Music Nights, recite to themselves week in and week out.
Never was this breath of faith exhaled with more optimistic aplomb than last Friday night, when local heroes the 'Knights of Passion' from Hexham, played the King's Head in Allendale.
This venue takes itself very seriously indeed, and it's been said that some of the best music in all of the northeast has been showcased within its intimate room. Even in, especially in this context, there's no need to patronise this young four-piece band -- they are really good. No, more than that, when you add in their originals and the care they take on the covers, they are excellent, no superb, value for money. But don't take my word for it, that's what the dancers said!
The band, composed of Oliver Nazer on lead guitar, with lush vocals from Tom Whitaker also on rhythm guitar and a superbly soaring and sustained vocal presence from Ben Blance on bass, was kept on a steady keel by drummer Nick Corkhill, who provided the thumping line that enervated the dancers throughout the night.
Sometimes, you have to give the promoters a little credit. They're the ones who listen to the advance demo tapes, who talk with the prospective bands, who seek to ensure the best quality music is always presented within these hallowed walls. Okay, this was not music for fat old balding types, this was music for the region's yoof! And why ever not?!
Not quite as old and fuddy-duddy as some would have it, the NMN group were captivated by the Knights' songs, and in booking the band were sure that the tradition of quality presentations would be maintained. The promoters were more than vindicated, while many young people in Allendale and environs are the poorer for missing the gig. At least that's what the steadily accumulating crowd implied as the room pressed together by the end of the evening. When the music draws the hangers-on downstairs to gawk upstairs, then I know it's got real power.
As for me, I loved the originals probably more than the covers. Songs like 'The way I know', with its repeated lyric 'If you would talk to me . . . there is only one way to go', or the extremely danceable 'How will it begin?' or the delicious 'Out of Time' wanting to 'go so high that I cannot be seen', and the band's ace number one hit, 'Things you think' really brought home the passion. 'Oceans of love' said just about everything, I'd have thought, about that sort of passion, while 'Now or Never' echoed an old Roy Orbison sentiment in an idiom as fresh as three young guys with guitars can make it.
Besides numbers like these, even the Police's 'Every breath' seemed sort of pale vindictive meanness, even David Bowie's 'The man who sold the world' a little insipid, even the Beatles' 'Twist and Shout' a bit what, oh, a bit great fun of course, and very danceable as always. Sure, these guys stand comparison with some brilliant bands, and considering that they can bring a floor to life with superb licks on lead guitar, with some incredible vocals and some sustained passion, then more power to them.
They deserve to run and run, these Knights of the night, and if they can come back to Allendale when the local promotions machine can get out and about to the under-25s in the region, then it's a sure bet that the entire venue, if not the whole market square, will be heaving with young, pulsating, dancing bodies until very late.
