Tuesday: NME Freshers Tour

So, on my second full day I first went to the National Museum and found out that from all the non-modern art I like the Ashcan Artists the most and that I like portraits artists made of rich people the least. (they painted portraits for money so there is no thought behind it, and I don't fancy that)Anyway, in the evening I went to the heart of London, to the Astoria building for NME's Freshers Tour, where Operator Please, Satin Peaches, and The Go! Team would perform. One thing you have to hand to the Astoria, it is one of the few buildings in London with a decent men's room (and I'm not joking).First up is Operator Please. I posted about them earlier, and I really like this band. They are fresh and fun (and very very young), and they make nice music. I also like the prominent place the violin has, and they make it sound like a proper pop instrument. "Just a Song About Ping Pong" is a lovely pop/rock song. And they enjoy themselves on stage, even if there are only a handful of people as they are the first band up.Then Satin Peaches. I, and I think the rest of the Astoria, are not very impressed by them. The sound is distinctive American rock, and this is the wrong crowd for it. Plus the voice is more screeching and screaming than singing.Then The Go! Team. Even though most of the vocals are sung in a hip-hop light rap style, it definitely is not hip-hop or rap. Actually, the idea behind it seems like the old Jazz mentality, where a bunch of instruments fuse together to form a good tune. What adds to that is that the vocals never take over, but they more or less are one of the instruments and blends in with the rest. The result is a good collective that makes good music, more often than not in a bit of party mode. Sometimes instruments are exchanged, and other people take on vocals, and that all adds even more to the feeling that it is a collective, a group of people that fuses their powers to make good, often danceable tunes. So it is not surprising that after the crowd was lulled to sleep by the Satin Peaches, everybody awakes to the tunes of The Go! Team, which proves to be a rightful headliner of this year's NME Freshers Tour.And just today I saw a clip of a live performance of them in Amsterdam at the London Calling festival in 2005, which proved to me that during those two years they have really improved on their performance and show.Youtube link: The Go! Team Grip Like a Vice: