Live Review: Piroshka / Bad Idea – Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, UK, 31st March 2019

Five minutes before Bad Idea walk on stage the Brudenell Social Club isn’t exactly full and I’m wondering if this is going to be one of those gigs where great bands play to almost no people. Thankfully there’s a decent number in by the time they begin their set of catchy, lo-fi, guitar drenched indie pop. This is a hard working band that formed less than two years ago but with the best part of forty gigs played and two singles released already. Bad Idea mix often delicate, summery, jangly guitar sounds in songs such as Date Night with noisier, heavy, fuzzy bass and drum driven numbers such as Boy Racer.  

After a song suffers a mis-start singer Sarah Sefton apologises, telling us how nervous she is. Apologies are unnecessary, as are the nerves, Sefton has one of those voices you can listen to for hours. Not unlike that of Harriet Wheeler (those of a certain age will remember The Sundays), her voice may be delicate and fragile but it’s one that blends perfectly with Bad Idea’s catchy hooks and the more subtle background vocals provided by drummer Daniel Johnson. I have no doubt we’ll be hearing a lot more about Bad Idea in the not too distant future.

Piroshka are not a supergroup, but they are made up of drummer Justin Welch, formerly of Elastica, Modern English‘s Michael Conroy on bass, Moose guitarist KJ McKillop and Lush‘s Miki Berenyi fronting the outfit. Piroshka stroll on to a now somewhat fuller venue and give us a guitar drenched set of perfect indie pop. Live Piroshka are a six piece, supplemented with keyboards, percussion and additional backing vocals. Their sound is different from that of their previous groups, edgier, tougher and darker but with Berenyi’s unmistakeable vocals and a clear nod to everything that defined the late 80’s/early 90’s alternative music scene.

Piroshka open with This Must Be Bedlam, which is also the opening track on their excellent debut album Brickbat, and it hooks the punters in immediately with it’s catchy, repetitive beat, layered sound and disdainful lyrics. Run For Your Life follows and is, perhaps, where we hear the most obvious comparison to Lush. Piroshka power through the whole of Brickbat meaning it’s a gig of songs that at one point might be Hated By The Powers That Be‘s pounding drums, shimmering, feverish guitars and digs at the state of current politics and opinions, whilst minutes later Blameless and Heartbeats are gentler, bittersweet and personal.

Whilst it’s hard not to think of Lush when Miki Berenyi sings, Piroshka’s lyrics are generally far harder hitting as they rally against todays ills, greed and inequality are addressed on Never Enough, along with constant bad news, school shootings and, of course, the absolute mess that is Brexit.  If you absolutely had to compare the live sound of Piroshka to that of other bands you might say there are small hints of Cocteau Twins, a touch of The Breeders and tiny amounts of Stereolab but ultimately Piroshka are Piroshka, four musicians each with a distinguished past who have come together to form something much more than the sum of it’s parts.

It’s clear from the smiles on stage that they enjoy what they are now doing. Ending their set with What’s Next, a song that has such a captivating, uplifting beat it’s easy to avoid the tracks political focus, “I’m terrified that the long forgotten days when we were divided are back again.” After leaving the stage for the briefest amount of time they return to announce their final song will be a cover, one that “If you recognise this you must be really old.” Feeling my age it took only seconds before I did and we get a perfect version of The Au Pairs It’s Obvious, that was released 39 years ago.

Photography by Steve White. You can visit Steve White‘s Flickr site here and you can click on any of the photos to view a slide show of the images.

Piroshka can be found on Facebook here and Brickbat can be purchased here

Bad Idea can be found Facebook here and Bandcamp here