The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureMusicLive music

Walking on Cars at Shepherd’s Bush Empire

Walking on Cars at Shepherd’s Bush Empire | Live review
16 May 2019
Daniel McLeod
Avatar
Shot by Guifre de Peray
Avatar
Daniel McLeod Shot by Guifre de Peray
16 May 2019

Music review

Daniel McLeod

Walking on Cars at Shepherd's Bush Empire

★★★★★

Highlights

Speeding Cars, Two Straight Lines

Links

Twitter Facebook Instagram Soundcloud Website

On a stage inundated with smoke, Walking on Cars emerge to a comfortably filled Shepherd’s Bush Empire. The crowd’s reception of the Irish four-piece – turned five for tonight’s show, having picked up an unnamed guitarist – is impassioned as the bass drum whumps.

The band opens with Monsters, from their new album Colours. Dingle native Patrick Sheehy’s gravelly voice croons under monster-green lights interspersed energetically with white. He rushes around the stage, mic in hand – “I see you running, I see you running scared”. This song is better suited to a live performance than an album setting. Here, the band’s undeniably tight musicianship shines through. Sonically cohesive, the ensemble’s approach to bombastic anthems is (from a purely musical, bar-level standpoint) refreshingly nuanced. Sorcha Durham’s backing vocals on One Last Dance delicately complement her wisping piano, while drummer Evan Hadnett’s satisfying snare wrapping offsets each track’s underlying, thunderous bass. Yet expand your view beyond the immediate moment, to the song structure and setlist, and problems emerge.

On the back wall, three varicoloured roses of increasing size form the show’s central imagery – artwork from the new album. These artificial flowers appear in lieu of a band name and form an appropriate metaphor for tonight’s performance: a rose (a tired image of love) brightly coloured (universal associations with positivity), expanding in size until it can’t be ignored. This visually represents the group’s songwriting approach. As the night wears on, it becomes clear that Walking on Cars’ composition style is now fully engrained. Song after song of the same empathically narrow, trope-saturated lyrics, followed inevitably by a drop circa the one-minute mark and a prompt upward turn via rapturous crescendo, only to be cut off suddenly for a lyrical solo… it’s a bit much. This formula wears and by tonight’s sixth number, Too Emotional – which Sheehy introduces as a wild new direction for the band only to sing the depressingly uninspired words, “All my friends say I’m too emotional, I can’t control myself when I’m around you” – it becomes hard to discern individual melodies. Tracks meld into one another and soon even the lights feel repetitious. Green again? Flashing white? Really?

Yet still the crowd cheers for an encore, Speeding Cars, proving Muriel Sparks’s words true: “For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.”

★★★★★

Daniel McLeod
Photos: Guifre de Peray

For further information and future events visit Walking on Cars’s website here.

Watch the video for Speeding Cars here:

Related Itemslive musicreview

More in Live music

South Facing Festival: Richard Ashcroft and his band were on impressive form from start to finish

★★★★★
Francis Nash
Read More

South Facing Festival: Jungle bring their signature neo-funk to Saturday night

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More

Patti Smith at the London Palladium

★★★★★
Jennifer Sanin
Read More

The Libertines at Wembley Arena

★★★★★
Sophia Moss
Read More

Kaleidoscope Festival cements its status as a family favourite at Alexandra Palace

★★★★★
Jessica Wall
Read More

Yola at Koko

★★★★★
Natallia Pearmain
Read More

John Legend at Somerset House

★★★★★
Jonathan Marshall
Read More

Primal Scream at Alexandra Palace Park

★★★★★
Sophia Moss
Read More

Black Midi at Somerset House

★★★★★
Jasper Watkins
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Music review

Daniel McLeod

Walking on Cars at Shepherd's Bush Empire

★★★★★

Highlights

Speeding Cars, Two Straight Lines

Links

Twitter Facebook Instagram Soundcloud Website

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • “Theatre is totally unique… there’s simply nothing else quite like it”: An interview with Sir Howard Panter as the new cast of Jersey Boys opens at Trafalgar Theatre
    Theatre
  • Midsummer Mechanicals at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Nope
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • The Sandman
    ★★★★★
    netflix
  • South Facing Festival: Richard Ashcroft and his band were on impressive form from start to finish
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Ed Fringe 2022: Hungry
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Eiffel
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Five Days at Memorial
    ★★★★★
    apple
  • Nope
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • South Facing Festival: Richard Ashcroft and his band were on impressive form from start to finish
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Nope
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Five Days at Memorial
    ★★★★★
    apple
  • South Facing Festival: Richard Ashcroft and his band were on impressive form from start to finish
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Jersey Boys bring on a new cast at Trafalgar Theatre
    Theatre
  • Prey
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

“This show has been like therapy to me, where I’ve had to accept and let go of some pain I’ve carried for years.” Writer-performer Kema Sikazwe on Shine
Deconstructing the Dream at Bloomsbury Theatre | Theatre review