ME at the Barfly

Australian rock band ME played the London leg of their European tour at the Barfly in Camden. The infamously elusive band consists of frontman Luke Ferris, Josh Murphy (lead guitar), Michael Godde (bass) and Spike Rogers (drums).  The group are currently promoting the release of their first full-length studio album, Even the Odd Ones Out, which was released last month. 

ME began the set with a cacophony of dirty, heavily distorted guitar effects, creating a wall of sound before dropping into a thumping rhythm. Straight away you could see that this band is hell bent on saluting the gods of rock. They seem to almost deliberately reincarnate their influences through their music and energetic performance.

ME exhibited versatility and skill with a variety of effective tracks: Working Life is a mixture of The Darkness and Queen, with a magnificent choral refrain, and Like a Fox is an incredible rock track with enough verve to mirror Muse in their earlier years.

The incomprehensible circus style theatrics of Hoo Ha and multi-structured rollercoaster of Vampire!! Vampire!! proved ME have a trick or two up their sleeves, while the 70s glam sound of Rock and Roll Dandy showed the quartet are able to attempt serious pop arrangements.

Multi-instrumentalist Ferris is an impressive singer, able to flip between his chest voice and the head voice of his falsetto with relative ease. Murphy’s guitar solos were flashy without being excessive, with impressive fret work displayed onstage. Godde is a very competent bassist, whilst Rogers is an incredibly frantic drummer who made proper use of his full drum kit and ridiculous ability.

It was intrinsically evident that this group have picked up great experience supporting the likes of Kasabian and Death from Above 1979. ME are a fantastic bunch of musicians, revealing extraordinary musicianship and vocal harmonising that made the hair on the back of the neck stand up.

This was a great show, marred only by their more mellow efforts, which lacked the punch and excitement of the more intense songs.  Finishing with Westwards Backwards, the finale was a show within itself, as singer became bassist and bassist became drummer.  This is definitely a band that needs to be experienced in a larger setting.

Verdict: •••

Samuel Mensah

Photos: Neil Mach

For further information about ME and future events visit here.

Watch the video for Rock and Roll Dandy here: