Sam Millar and the Sass Bandits played a rare hometown gig to celebrate the release of their much anticipated album, More Cheese Please.
Their biggest headline show to date, this was always going to be a great night and the band didn’t disappoint. The crowd that packed in to the hot, sweaty Boulevard were ready to party. Despite Sam’s insistence that the songs are cheesy, they are well crafted and irresistibly catchy – get one of these earworms in your head and it’ll be stuck there for ages.
The set opened with the first track on the album, ‘The Killing Floor’, which sounded fantastic live and set the intention for the rest of the night. Chardonay’ (“It’s about a stripper. She was nice though”) admittedly has more than a whif of fromage about it, but in a good way.
We were treated to a range of old and new songs – a cheeseboard, you might say – with each AOR inspired hook made to sound deceptively simple, uplifting and a lot of fun. Their latest single, ‘Dancing On My Own’ is just so catchy you can’t help moving to it, and the whole crowd were doing just that.
Shout out to bass player Benji Faith (anyone who can windmill their hair like that deserves a mention), keyboard and party popper operator James Thorley and drummer Alex Lacey who played his final gig with the band on the night.
If you get chance to see Sam Millar and the Sass Bandits live, do it ( See www.sammillar.co.uk for upcoming shows ). They’re already confirmed for Call Of The Wild Festival next year, doubtless with more to come. Just be warned – you may never get those catchy hooks out of your head…
Words by Fiona Turner
Photos by Philip Goddard
