Turn

Temple Bar Music Centre, Aug 30, 2001

I walked away from Turn's gig, in the music centre, last night with an uncontrollable urge to shout, "they rocked" and other such nonsensical euphemisms. Such is the reaction they provoke. So apologies abound if this review becomes littered with similar outbursts.

Turn exploded onto the stage, attired in their trademark suit and ties, with a rocking rendition of their, as yet untitled, song known to some as the "JJ72" song, which would appear to be still undergoing some major lyric changes. The band put the crowd's fresh attention to good use by playing a lot of new material in the first half of their set, but threw in the crowd pleasing sing along 'Antisocial', the title track of their debut album for good measure. The near capacity crowd were treated to a moving solo effort from Ollie midway through the set, and it must be said that Ollie, Gav and Ian seem to be taking a more mellow approach to the songs for the new album.

Soon after Ollie's solo he announced that it was time to get down to "the serious business of rocking". Songs like 'Queen of My Heart', 'Beretta' and 'Face Down' did the job nicely and whipped the crowd into a frenzy with moshing and crowd surfing aplenty. Ollie was relegated to backing vocals when an eager fan, Andy, accepted Ollie's challenge and joined the band on stage for 'Words' during their encore. Turn finished with 'Too Much Make-Up', which was a thrilling climax to one of the most energetic gigs I've been to in a long, long time.

The gig was supposed to be the launch of a new Turn E.P. but sadly that "just didn't work". However there is hope in sight for those expectant Turn fans as the band are in the pre-production stage of their new album and have several tracks already demoed and hope to start recording it in the next few months. Turn are a band who are well worth going to see and if last night's gig was anything to go by this new album will be well worth the wait.

Emma Meehan

Photo by roger@original-photography.com