100 Fables LIVE at The Cathouse

As great as it is to have regular opportunities to point our cameras in the direction of world-renowned artists, it’s also pretty exciting to go and watch emerging talent. And occasionally, having had the chance to see an emerging band perform, we catch them for a second time at a later date to see how things have progressed.

I first saw 80’s post punk and new wave-influenced 100 Fables at a music festival back in the summer of 2015 when the band was very much in its infancy. But even though this was one of their first ever live performances, you’d never have know it unless someone had told you. They put on a really tight, high energy performance, which was topped by a barnstorming version of the Talking Heads classic, Psycho Killer. Given that ol’ decibelROGUE is an 80’s kid himself, well, they just pushed all the right buttons.

Fast forward a year or so to last Saturday night at The Cathouse, Glasgow and 100 Fables were in town to give a preview performance of their new single Wake Up. As the band took to the stage and launched into old favourite Future Girl, I was really looking forward to seeing whether (new single aside) there was any other new material to enjoy. And it’s clear the band have indeed been busy on the songwriting front because their set was full of original songs, the majority of which I was seeing live for the first time. So while there was no Psycho Killer this time around, we had the likes of Metropolis and the brilliantly dramatic Untold instead.

Wake Up is a fantastic piece of high energy pop punk fun and really sums up what is great about 100 Fables. This song, perhaps more than any of the others performed on Saturday perfectly captures the 80’s vibe which inspires the band. It’s got more than a hint of Blondie about it and it drives along like the proverbial express train.

The band, consisting of Lindsey Liora (vocals), Erin Reidy (guitar), Harris Hiscoe (bass) and Chris Stewart (drums) were once again superb. In Liora they have a frontwoman who – apart from having a great voice – has stage presence and charisma to burn. And I loved watching Harris Hiscoe, who is one of those bass players who doesn’t settle for standing in the shadows at the back of the stage. He was always bombing around doing all the guitar hero style posing that we’d all love to be able to do ourselves given the chance.

The 80’s has always – totally unfairly in my view – taken a beating as being a decade of bad music. Yes, admittedly there were more than a few absolutely honking releases during that time which still make you wince if you have the misfortune to hear them today. But I challenge you to try and count all the great artists and songs from that decade. You might need a while for that one!

So given the bad press that that decade always seems to attract, I think that it’s brilliant that there are young bands such as 100 Fables out there today who use the best bits of 80’s music as inspiration. Especially when they go on to write and preform material that is as good as theirs is.  Wake Up will be released on video on 15 December and the single itself is available for pre-order the same day. Needless to say, decibelROGUE will be purchasing a copy and would suggest you should too.

Setlist

Future Girl
Rule This City
Tomorrow Never Comes
Metropolis
Untold
Wake Up
Lost Generation

Links

You can follow 100 Fables on Facebook HERE
Visit the 100 Fables official webpage HERE

Gallery