> Reviews > Reviews 2008 > The Breeders

Review by Rob.

Short but sweet from the Sister Act.

We must confess to getting caught out a bit for this gig. Normally headline bands at the excellent Met Uni venue come on at half nine or so and play through to eleven. You know the usual gig times. So it came as a surprise on walking up to the venue to hear the dulcet tones of the Deal twins booming out from inside. Yes we were late - no hold on, sod it, they were early, as it was only 8.50. Christ, at some Leeds venues the support band is only just coming on at this time.

Taking our places swiftly, we sussed out that they were into only their second song or so, and after a push through the impressively sized crowd (almost a sell out) we were settled. In fact we ended up fairly near to the front and thus were able to have a good look at chief Breeder Kim Deal. Now I must be honest here and say although I have always found her on the extremely dishy side, on the recent Pixies reunion tour she wasn't at her best, and had perhaps been indulging in that well known American pastime of letting oneself go a bit. Happily this is not the case tonight and she was back to looking very cute, as was twin sister Kelley on the other side of the stage. The band is completed by two blokes on drums and bass both pretty impressive musicians, and an occasional third (female) guitarist and vocalist. This is their first tour for a while as they have not been really active since the 'title TK' album from 2002, and I passed up the chance to see Portishead tonight for a slice of heavenly alt. rock.

Song wise, the show revolves pretty much around new album 'Mountain Battles' as they play around 8 songs from this opus. The new stuff is pretty impressive to be honest, though I must confess at this stage to not having heard the finished album. However most of the folk are here for the oldies, and they oblige us in this area to with 'Iris', 'Divine Hammer', their Beatles cover 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' and of course 'Cannonball'. Indeed quite a lot of 'Last Splash' is played tonight, though sadly they only do a couple from my favourite 'Pod', though apart from the already mentioned tunes they do finish up with the excellent 'Fortunately Gone'. Kim's voice is as sweet as ever and she backs this up with some smart guitar work as does her sister, though Kelley does pop up on bass for a while too. Apart from the songs we get, well little else, though the banter between Kim and Kelley is excellent, proper sister squabbling, and at times its like they are having an argument in their front room forgetting that a thousand pairs of eyes are on them. The only complaint was that it was too short, finishing at the ungodly time of ten past ten. Still they crammed over 20 songs into this time, plus I got home early from a midweek gig for once which must be a bonus.

Top