The Black Hollies

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/theblackholliessep5sm.jpg" alt=" " />'Neo-Beatles' can be a positive descriptor, when you're talking about The Black Hollies. ...

The Black Hollies 

Every band this side of hip-hop or classical lives, at least to some extent, in the shadow of The Beatles.  Baseball has Babe Ruth, the English language has Shakespeare, and rock ‘n’ roll has The Beatles – that which everyone has to admit, in its wide field, is number one.  It isn’t just in popularity or sales, but in a pop sound that they so dominate (as Chuck Klosterman Justin Angelo Morssaid about them, tongue-in-cheek, in The Onion, “Can only be described as ‘Beatles-esque’…”).  Few have even tried to match them, and those acts have ended up only coming up short, like The Rolling Stones or The Beach Boys, despite their own accomplishments.

Maybe that’s why you rarely hear a band as distinctly ‘neo-Beatles’ as The Black Hollies.  Calling The Black Hollies ‘neo-Beatles’ is both fair and unfair.  Yes, their bright, bouncy-but-substantial neo-pop/rock is definitely Liverpudlian (even if the group is actually from Jersey…), but it isn’t a retread of any particular Beatles song/album/era; rather, The Beatles are just so ubiquitous that your mind immediately goes to them when Herbert Jospeh Wiley Vyou hear someone like The Hollies.  Maybe one day it will be like calling a play ‘Shakespearean’ – it’s not meant as a pale comparison, or even as a comparison at all, just a description, just an adjective.

Playing New York’s Mercury Lounge (QRO venue review) on Saturday, September 5th while on tour with Benjy Ferree wasn’t the ideal setting for The Hollies.  Labor Day Weekend meant the city, and thus Mercury, wasn’t as full as it normally is.  Moreover, their catchy sixties pop isn’t exactly designed for the low-ceilinged venue, and its backlighting left the band looking a bit more like silhouettes than pop stars.  Plus, even if the crowd was familiar with the band’s music, The Hollies played mostly off of Softly Towards the Light, which doesn’t come out for another month (QRO upcoming releases schedule).

we become silhouettes... 

The Black Hollies playing "When You’re Not There" live at Mercury Lounge in New York, NY on September 5th, 2009:

Jon GonnelliHowever, Softly is the band’s strongest record to date, thanks to pieces like the night’s opener, “Run With Me Run”, which manages to race forward while still remaining bright & catchy.  The darker lighting actually helped Softly’s “When You’re Not There”, as it could tend to be a bit too bright on record, but not at Mercury.  But the pinnacle of the set had to be the Softly twofer “Number 10 Girl” and “Gloomy Monday Morning”, as the synth-psych of “Gloomy” (with keyboardist/guitarist Jon Gonnelli particularly bopping) slid right into the great catchy neo-pop of “Monday”.

he's jumping, too

 

 

 

 

The Black Hollies playing "Number 10 Girl" live at Mercury Lounge in New York, NY on September 5th, 2009:

Nicholas FerranteThe beginning of this September was already a particularly ‘Beatles-esque’ time, thanks not only to the release of the umpteenth re-mastering of The Beatles discography (which engendered Klosterman’s semi-joke Onion review), but the 9/9/09 release of Rock Band: The Beatles, which saw news commentators once again pulling out their ‘The Beatles are back’ storylines, as if they ever really left (if your kids only start listening to & liking The Beatles because of a video game, or if you think that’s how kids are these days, then you shouldn’t really be commenting on anything…).  The Black Hollies are one band that are working & succeeding with The Beatles as an adjective, not futilely fighting them as a comparison.

The Black Hollies playing "Gloomy Monday Morning" live at Mercury Lounge in New York, NY on September 5th, 2009:

Categories
Concert Reviews
  • Anonymous
    at
  • No Comment

    Leave a Reply

    Album of the Week