City and Colour / Jacobs Stories

As any Alexisonfire fan will know, lead singer Dallas Green has been touring the Barfly venues around the country with his side project entitled City and Colour, which oddly enough is just himself and his guitar. The Dallas hype has swept amongst the emo crowd with a fierce fan following and so I went to check out the hype.

Manchester doesn’t have a barfly venue. Manchester sucks! But it was nice to have a little trek to Liverpool and I must say that the Barfly there is one of the most intriguing venues I have ever stumbled upon. With a crowd of 150 or so emo kids, I felt like I had walked into some exclusive beautiful people party. The Barfly is a cross between a run down theatre and an over sized mansion, and the crowd sat excitedly waiting for their idol to show.

Support was supplied from Jacobs Stories, a solo singer with just his keyboard for company. He offered a haunting vocal that echoed around the room like some kind of chant. His voice can draw on a par with Matt Bellamy, except if Matt was really tired and couldn’t be bothered singing for a little while. His songs were melodic yet powerful, stopping halfway to tell eventful stories of the tour and making wise cracks at his pals. A good 25 minute performance, if a little , monotonous at times, and it was fairly obvious the crowd were hyped for Dallas.

The man himself appeared on stage with a sense of modesty for his former project and an honest sense of gratitude towards his adoring fans. The intimacy of the venue provided an exclusive atmosphere, everyone in the room was no further than twenty feet from Dallas who delivered all the favourites perfectly, especially the acclaimed “Save your scissors”, the pretty “Day old hate” and his new song, which has been named after an in joke of “Dead horse.” (note it’s not ACTUALLY called this, and if you’re after it, it’s called “Sensible Heart”) Dallas offers in person what he does on CD, a most enchanting voice with excellent guitar skills, completely at ease being on the stage alone, and even treating us to an acoustic version of Alexisonfire’s “Side walk when she walks.” A true treat for any fan, and I must say I was somewhat amazed when I heard it.

Alexisonfire are no means forgotten, Dallas intends on touring with them again soon. But for now, he is offering the acoustic and melodic sounds of just himself, and I have to say that it’s bloody brilliant. If you haven’t already, check it out.

FUTURE GIGS

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