Rovers Ahead

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author PP date 07/02/14 venue BETA, Copenhagen, DEN

To celebrate the release of their highly anticipated and excellent debut album "Always The Sinner, Never The Saint", Copenhagen folk punkers Rovers Ahead had scheduled a night of punk rock, Irish themed music, and booze for a cold Friday night, which also happened to be the 19th edition of our monthly ALL KILLER NO FILLER club event. While myself and AP were busy spinning tunes before and after their set (no support band tonight), we paused for a brief moment at 22:00 for the live premiere of two new videos by the band. The doors to the concert room were still sealed shut, which meant that the main room was packed to its limits of Rovers Ahead fans and other curious faces at the sold out event. Here, a projector had been setup for the two music videos to be aired one after each other to wild applause from the crowd.

Rovers Ahead

Shortly afterwards, the doors were opened and Rovers Ahead hopped on stage. At eight people, they are quite the sight to behold as they pack themselves tightly onto the small BETA stage, with very little room for extra movement for any individual in the band. Not that we are to expect much, vocalist Nathan is recovering from back surgery, meaning his energy-levels are understandably limited at this stage, which is also reflected by the mid-set pause, where he disappears from the stage while the band perform instrumental songs and tracks where Benjamin handles the lead vocals instead.

The band are faced with technical difficulty in the beginning, playing at what AP referred to as 'pub-levels' in terms of the volume of their instrumentation. As a result you can hear people talking loud and clear just halfway into the venue, and it takes quite a few songs to transform the room into a frenzy of Irish dancing and cheers from the audience. The issue does fix itself about five or six tracks in, at which point more and more movement starts manifesting itself in the crowd. The band cycle through most songs from their new album, receiving a moderate sing along to a couple of the older tracks like "One Mad Night At The Pub" and "Went Out To Get A Drink (But Ended Up In Jail)", but in general it's slightly disappointing that there isn't more frantic movement from the crowd's side. This should fix itself once people get more into the record, because as I've stated before, it is genuinely capable of contesting evenly against the bigger international names in the genre.

The band play for a full hour, where towards the end we see guest vocalist Daniel Broman jump on stage of Babylove & The Van Dangos fame. His bearded appearance is a familiar sight to many, and those in the know recognize his voice from "Lend Me This Month's Rent" on the new album. He adds some additional flair to a set that has been characterized by dancing, jolly violin and banjo melodies, partying, many a cheers by Nathan towards the crowd (and thus beers drunk), a few song dedications to their parents and family who are all in attendance tonight in support... all in all, a fun night that, if nothing else, proved that the new Rovers Ahead songs work very well in a live environment as well. Give it a month, and the crowd should have heard it enough to go mental as well.

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