Sleepy Sun @ the Kazimier – Reviewed

A wet Tuesday night gig is the unlikely stage to – eventually – feel the warm glow of a sleepy sun…

Yes it was a wet Tuesday night with autumn definitely starting to make itself felt, and yes England also happened to be on TV, playing a World Cup qualifier, but to say the turn-out for San Francisco’s finest, Sleepy Sun, was disappointing is perhaps the understatement of the month.

Signed to a very fine indie label (ATP Recordings) and riding the wave of a warmly received third album, the band will have had every right (however unfairly) to take out their – mostly – well-hidden disappointment on the few dozen who did haul themselves down to the Kazimier earlier this week.

Before we could gauge their reaction to such a sparsely populated venue though, Eva Peterson got things underway. Unfortunately, we arrived too late to catch her set, but are reliably informed she ended on a high, with a Velvet Underground & Nico cover of Femme Fatale. Needless to say, we regretted our tardiness.

We were in time for the other support band though. Aviator are interesting for a couple of reasons. Not least because it happened to be their first gig, but also, they’re fronted by Cast stalwart Pete Wilkinson. While never straying too far from the 90s indie band template, they made for good fun, chugging through a set full of proficient guitar-pop.

You could be forgiven for thinking that has the whiff of back-handed compliment about it, but you’d be wrong. Aviator, while not exactly reinventing the wheel, display a musicianship that has been hard-earned and by the end of the set, kids clearly there for Sleepy Sun have been won over.

With little in the way of pomp or ceremony, pretty soon our headliners take to the stage. If they’re taken aback by the lack of anything approaching a mosh-pit, the – now all male – five-piece don’t show it. They get stuck straight into the set, one strewn with tracks from new album, Spine Hits, their first recorded without former front-woman Rachel Fannan. Indeed, last time we saw Sleepy Sun, the band (and crowd) had danced to her tune.

For the record, and if you’ve never seen this band live, Constantino’s voice is effortlessly delivered, and seems conjured from god knows where, but if we’d had reservations about his making up for Fannan, they were swept away early and definitively.

It was interesting to see how the dynamic had changed; there was much less in the way of audience engagement. If we can’t quite describe the performance as business-like, there was certainly a greater emphasis on rattling through three albums worth of psyche-rock of the very highest order. Sleepy Sun don’t mess about. If we’d been impressed with the level of musicianship displayed by Aviator, singer Bret Constantino and his band step it up further still.

Despite the prevalence of material coming from the new record, we’re also treated to a handful of ‘oldies’, Marina amongst them. But it says much about this band that one of the stand-outs on the night is a newie. Before that though, Constantino finally cracks and loses his rag a bit: “This is our first time in Liverpool, but what, you guys don’t stand at concerts? Maybe we have to earn it.” It was a reference to the fact that a fair proportion took the relaxed atmosphere a step further, choosing to remain seated.

That particular newie though, when it comes, is worth the front-man’s reproach. Martyr’s Mantra is a big, epic song, which serves both to rouse the modest throng and seems to embolden the band. By accident or design, the song also includes the plea ‘come closer, don’t push me away’, and belatedly, it seems we’re all on the same page, people finally loosening up.

Come the end of the set (no encore was played), which was concluded with an astonishing rendition of New Age from first album, Embrace, one couldn’t help but feel a twinge of anti-climax. This had nothing to do with Sleepy Sun, however.

In our preview for this gig, we’d said how it would be a shame to let a band like this pass you by. That so many did is a cause for consternation to us, and surely Sleepy Sun themselves, and the concern is that next time they tour, they may think twice about adding Liverpool to their dates. It would be our loss.