Up-Load UK, Gigs News & reviews Puressence

If there is an iota of justice in the music industry, it will be Puressence, not Embrace standing on the Top of The Pops stage in four years time with the likes of Theo Walcott, Wayne Rooney and Aaron Lennon, belting out the 2010 England World Cup Song. Sadly that quite bizarre mind-picture is unlikely to happen for two very good reasons; firstly, it is doubtful that Theo Walcott will ever appear anywhere in public at any stage in the future, but perhaps more depressingly is the fact that the band I've loved for nigh on fifteen years (good name for a song that!) have been criminally ignored for all that time, so why on earth will that change now?

Well maybe, just maybe, the tide could turn with the onset of the new fourth album. Certainly standing in the audience, listening to the new tunes at the Academy in Islington last Friday, you get the feeling that their wholly deserved success could be just around the corner. But I've thought that many times before and still struggle consistently to comprehend the band's mere fleeting flirtations with the bottom end of the charts.

For the uninitiated, the group have a sound that's an eclectic mix of everything that's good about Geneva, Haven and Keane, shrouded in blistering guitars, heroic harmonies, anthemic choruses and an emotive, angelic vocal that everyone should have played at their funeral - that is in self-defining terms, the pure essence of Manchester's finest quartet. I could list twenty songs and more from down the years that you just know the general public would adore, were they to be presented with a listening opportunity. I have lost count of the times that a friend, relative or work colleague has been in my car or house and said to me "This is good, who's this? Can you do me a copy?" Alas, my car is not XFM or Radio 1 and my lounge isn't MTV, so exposure is limited to word of mouth and local recommendation. So Traffic Jam in Memory Lane, This Feeling and It Doesn't Matter Anymore, three quite superb and commercial singles, get comprehensively outsold by the Crazy Frog, Rachel Stevens (
fit but shit) and Ne-Yo (I'm so farting tired of your love songs already mate). Christ, even my mother, bless her, asked me recently if I could do a 'tape' for her, but "just the slow ones dear". I think the last "Best of" cassette I did was in about 1986, but nonetheless the likes of Understanding and Moss Side Lonely got recorded and my mum had her treasured tape - the sight of her then trying to find the slot in her computer in which to play it was comedy of the highest order.

The new songs sound fantastic and it's encouraging to hear Revolution plugging the single Palisades so well and I personally cannot wait until I hear Don't Forget to Remember on digital. Some coverage in the music press would be nice and the odd TV appearance please Mr Tim Lovejoy would not go amiss, otherwise the new hauntingly beautiful melodies that I listened to on Friday are going to join the brilliance of Northern Framing Company, My Eyes are Streaming and Only Holy Maybe and sit gathering dust in an archive vault somewhere.

It was really great seeing the band again and the venue did their sound proud, but I do still harbour dreams of Glastonbury and the ultimate vision of the next Live 8 with Puressence, during a torrential thunderstorm, screaming out London in the Rain. Now that would be theatre. Instead we'll get the continuous tide of Starsailor and Razorlight and all the NME's little favourites cramming our airwaves. Is there not something terribly prophetic about James asking "I can't figure out why what's yours ain't mine?" (My favourite Puressence song incidentally).

Fairy tales do happen, I recall seeing Muse a few years back at the Astoria supported by a relatively unknown band called Coldplay and now look where they are. Maybe James needs to do a Chris Martin, marry a celebrity and have a baby named after a fruit - Guava or Kumquat something like that - actually no, Mango Mudriczki wins it for me.