Dinosaur Pile Up

Dinosaur Pile-Up
City Screen Basement

Imagine the worst gig you have ever been to. Chances are it was a shambolic event, maybe a PA broke or the singer stormed off. These are pretty standard grievances which go hand in hand with the clichés and pitfalls of rock ‘n roll, but my main gripe will always remain the middle of the road.
Dinosaur Pile-Up are a fairly interesting new band, dark basslines and crunching guitars mixed with enough shoutalong choruses to peacefully blend mass-appeal and blogger’s delight. Couple this with a tiny, intimate venue and enough hype to pack it to the rafters and it seems the scene is set for a myth inducing event soon to be the parable of the word on the grubby street. But, unfortunately everything runs smoothly. Too smoothly.Following a slew of dire indie-by-the-numbers support bands DPU take to the humid stage surrounded entirely in a pincer movement of hungry punters. Despite their rapidly increasing repertoire of anthemic gems every track seems to slide easily into the next with the minimum of banter or elation, the non-plussed crowd never really entering the spirit. Take nothing away from Dinosaur Pile-Up’s musicianship, every song is played expertly and with a minimum of fuss but by busting out easily their best track (the fantastic ‘Love is a boat & we’re sinking) in the opening ten minutes they crash the nail directly into their own coffin. Even drunken students wandering the stage and thrusting behind band members cannot bring excitement to what is a very disappointing and dull gig.