Four Day Hombre / Dry Dock, Leeds

Four Day Hombre started out round about the same time as Novacain, but unlike us they gigged ceaselessly were getting rave reviews from the local music press and websites such as Leeds Music Scene. When I found out they were playing a free show at the Dry Dock in January, I thought it would be a good opportunity to see what all the fuss was about.

Mike, Spen and I got to the venue just before Four Day Hombre took to the stage. They were super tight and had great vocal harmonies but I wasn't overly taken with the songs. They seemed pretty forgettable and over long. I was obviously in the minority though - the Dry Dock was packed and the front half of the crowd were going nuts. Suggy arrived towards the end their first set and we spent the interval talking about how we could improve our own shows by learning from They were incredibly professional, with a good line in banter and swift changeovers and were really well practiced, thanks to their busy touring schedule. In contrast, we frequently left huge spaces between songs while we tuned our instruments &c. and we could be musically sloppy. Also, Leigh wasn't particularly great at engaging with the audience, often turning his back on the crowd and rarely saying anything beyond naming the song we were about to play.

Four Day Hombre's second set featured a DJ, 'scratching' along with some of the band's newer material. His presence seemed completely unnecessary; a particularly lame attempt to get 'down with the kids'. On the odd occasion one could hear what the hell he was doing, his parts came across as completely tacked on, like the band hadn't involved him in the songwriting process and had merely asked him to add beats and scratches on top of their tracks. It wasn't all bad though, the second half featured stronger songs and I ended up buying a live album, 'Live 2000', from them after the show.

A few years later, after we'd formed The Voltaires, we played on the same bill as Four Day Hombre at a festival in Huddersfield. They'd rocked things up a little by then, ditched the DJ and were starting to pick up plays on Radios 1 and 2. A few years after that they changed their name to Hope&Social and they are still going TO THIS DAY, dear reader.