Colchester’s The Neat People are a promoter’s dream and a licencee’s nightmare, working up the crowd for the main act and preventing people from remaining at, or drifting back to, the bar. Their brand of Mod-ish pop isn’t new but they’re a good good-time band. I’m not sure which American region is represented by Piney’s German milkmaid outfit but the effect captures perfectly the impure country thoughts that go into Piney Gir’s Country Roadshow. Some songs are a little kitschy (‘Trouble’), others show their fondness for torch and twang country heartbreakers like the slow and anguished Patsy Cline-ish ‘Little Doggy’ (their “most grown up song”) or ‘I Don’t Know Why I Feel Like Cryin’ (But I Do)’ with its moaning pedal steel. ‘The Great Divide’ rewrites relationships in terms of American geography while ‘the Big Apple Song’ is Pogues-like cowpunk. There are also country versions of a number of songs from Piney’s non-country ‘Peakahokahoo’ album, including a rocking ‘Boston’. They seem to capture the spirit of country perfectly and the music, if it wasn’t for the several stories that sit on top of the excellent basement venue, would have lifted the roof off. Roll on the album!

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