Luke Pickett

I’m not going to hang around here. There is a reason why you probably haven’t heard of Luke Pickett. I’m not thinking of his recent solo status after breaking away from his up-and-coming band Her Words Kill. I’m not even thinking of the fact that he is from an inauspicious town in Hertfordshire. I’m thinking that your friend has probably been warned to stay clear of him at all costs. If so, buy that person a pint. Sod it, buy him the whole bar. They are a Saint!

Unfortunately, I don’t have any of those friends. Mine are too busy getting pissed down the pub with their own money. And so it was that I found myself at Newcastle’s Carling Academy 2 in all its intimate glory, unprepared for what was in store.

	"He seems happier to remain in the comfort zone of musical mediocrity than to branch out into more pioneering exploits that might render him vaguely credible."

The first of many unpleasant shocks was his hair. It is perhaps best described as a mullet, but a mullet cross-bred with one of the hair bear bunch only without the effortlessly understated chic. I’m trying to remember what decade Luke Pickett’s hairstyle was fashionable in. In fact, I am trying to remember any time that it was in fashion. Maybe it was the time when his music was considered decent.

The second alarm was that at least three quarters of the audience seemed to comprise of a school outing of Year 8’s who were already camped at the front, no doubt in anticipation of Luke’s mullet or his schoolboy smile. There were screams when he arrived, a scantily-clad 15 year old in front was talking about her boyfriend, an overweight teenager was doing her make-up in a handheld mirror...It’s enough to make you lose faith with the human race.

The third, and yes I have given it the big build up, was the music itself. Producing a brand of acoustic emo, Pickett proceeds to zealously strum at the same few chords with very little end result. His voice seems to whine over this with a self-pitying air, singing "I didn’t think you could pull a stunt like that", and the whole overall effect is one of a distinctly over-hyped affair. Or at least an affair that you have heard a hundred times before from a pained young twentysomething.

Playing through his material, I was continually hung up on their similarity to one another. Granted, a single acoustic guitar doesn’t allow for a great deal of variation in sound, but this was further aggravated by his vocals which follow the same griping formula chorus after chorus. I was getting a headache by now.

Arriving at his midway song ‘Guilty as Charged’, he claimed to be performing some new material, and yet it was merely a continuation of the same old stuff, with the same old chords, with the same old vocals, with the same old…you get the idea. Clearly then, he is not taken with the idea of improvement and progression towards a better sound. He seems happier to remain in the comfort zone of musical mediocrity than to branch out into more pioneering exploits that might render him vaguely credible.

‘Casino Brawl’, possibly his best known song (relatively speaking), is saved until last, demonstrating a surprising amount of musical talent, a talent that is, as yet however, so hideously unharnessed. And so he continues to moan, and the little girls continue to scream, and the fat lass continues to apply the finishing touches to her make-up...Stop whining Luke, nobody cares.

It is somewhat appropriate then, that Pickett dedicated his encore to the "four lovely girls at the front" before playing another gratuitously self-pitying song in ‘And Asleep I Am Your Everything’.

You see, he may have boyband looks, he have a tattoo and he may be just about old enough to grow facial hair, but that only appeals to a very niche market, the kind of market that will go out and buy the Britney Spears single the next week. If he can add musical depth to that cheeky smile, there may be the foundations for a plausible artist hidden somewhere. Just stop whinging, please.

Leaving the venue with the mother of all headaches I heard someone outside ask "Who the f**k is Luke Pickett?" Lucky him. He must have nice friends. Stay away, at least for now.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.