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A LIVE REVIEW
JOON, Sept 8, Wagon & Horses, Newhey

You wouldn’t think it was possible to squeeze a stadium into a small provincial boozer, and you’d be right. That would be stupid. It would involve far too much planning, and possibly a few changes to the laws of physics. However, what is possible, as proved ably here by JOON, is that you can transport the atmosphere, tunes, intensity and VOLUME of a stadium show into a pub so tiny, they serve the Coke out of lukewarm bottles.

JOON, for the uninitiated, are the “idiosyncratic, smile-inducing party of a band” we first reviewed back in March. Part of the New Wave Of Old Rock (which probably doesn’t exist but, hey, sounds snappy), they’ve liberated 80s synth rock, prising it from the near-dead hands of balding men in abysmal shirts, tearing it up and rebuilding it in their own image.

They do as much tonight; storming through a set which veers effortlessly between note-perfect covers of genre standards and the band’s own compositions. Particularly pleasing are rabble-rousing renditions of A-Ha’s ‘Take On Me’ (so loud they probably heard it in Norway) and JOON’s own towering, power-rock behemoth ‘Walk Like You Don’t Care’ (a tune which causes giddiness in ourselves not seen since we last OD’d on Sunny Delight).

It’s testament to their skill as musicians, not only as showmen, that all the songs the band play tonight sit so comfortably together, and even their appropriately-gargantuan set length (a Springsteen-pushing two hours) feels like it breezes by. In a word, immense.