CityLife

Pocketbooks

EVERYONE loves a bit of twee, right? Songs about cups of tea from proper tea cups.

The tangle of dancing white tights. Bunting. There is however, such a thing as too much twee.

So much twee in fact, that with each cutesy lyric and every chiming, impossibly happy harmony you feel like your capacity to think is dying a sort of sickly death.

Like the nauseous feeling you get in your stomach after you’ve had too much chocolate - except in your brain.

It is for this reason that I am less than fond of unrelenting, all twee all the time line-ups.

Something that Pull Yourself Together’s grouping of Pocketbooks with The Loves, The Bobby McGees and The Lovely Eggs promises.

So it is with an exhalation of relief that I found the atmosphere of Pull Yourself Together at The Black Lion to be mellow, understated and most surprisingly, almost entirely uncontrived.

Pocketbooks slotted into this relaxed atmophere as fittingly as the comfortable looking cardigans seen on 90 per cent of the people attending - profferring unpretentious indie-pop with light, infectious melodies, duelling boy/girl vocals and obligatory twee-pop handclaps.

It is their first time playing Manchester in two years, they tell us. And so excited are they about this fact, they've actually printed out a set list.

Obviously very musically capable, Pocketbooks deliver a consistently pleasing set. Whimsical, yet unaffectedly so - Pocketbooks perhaps borrow more from The Kinks than say, The Pastels in their English quaintness.

They thank The Loves for clapping voraciously along with each song. Could the evening descend into a massive clap-off? Quite possibly.

A minor technical glitch results in a prolonged awkward silence followed by a number of self-conscious anecdotes. News that their next date is in Hull is met with baffling applause. It could be said, they've rather won us over.

A little bit Sleeper, a little bit Lightning Seeds and a little bit Tender Trap - as nice as each song was (and they were all nice. Really bloody NICE) it edges very closely to becoming quite cloying.

A little diversity wouldn't go amiss. Lyrics about eating chips in seaside towns gets a bit much eventually, but has the potential to be sharpened up nicely.

A shade of irony might make the whole thing a little more enduring.

Pocketbooks seem decidedly at home playing in the upstairs room at a Salford pub. Perhaps if they set their sights a little higher, they might surprise even themselves.     
 

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