Best Coast, Viola Beach, Bathymetry: The Kazimier, Liverpool

Best Coast

As Best Coast perform the last ever Liverpool Music Week show at the Kazimier, Getintothis’ Jamie Bowman discovers their perfect soundtrack for teenage dreams.

Remember being 16? It was great wasn’t it? Best years of your life and all that. Yes, it’s easy being cynical, but tonight’s all ages show (complete with wrist bands for those drinkers over 18) is one of those nights we should all have once in a while to remind us just why we fell in love with music all those years ago.

Coming on before 8pm is a tough ask for any band but Bathymetry are well used to a support slot by now. Bursting on to the scene with their Jesus and Mary Chain support slot earlier this year, this female three piece have impressed with their delicate combination of Raincoats-esque dissonance and beautifully naïve jangle pop. They have songs a plenty and a pleasingly delicate way with a tune which recalls all those bands on Sarah Records whose names we can’t remember. Suffice to say it’s wispy but glorious in equal measure.

Hailing from Warrington (“no one ever cheers us when we say that”) Viola Beach quickly win over the growing crowd of youngsters with their glittery faces and energetic indie pop which has a pleasing dose of the slacker running through it. Quite why they’ve not broken through yet seems incongruous when their killer tunes slay a teenage crowd who react to their melodic solos with a healthy sense of abandon.

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With the venue packed to the gills, the roar which meets Californian dream pop duo Best Coast betrays the fact this is a band who’ve made the jump from cult interest to serious sales with front woman Bethany Cosentino becoming something of an alternative sex symbol. Recent reviewers have come under fire for making reference to Cosentino’s overt sexuality but it’s hard to ignore the fact here is a confident, sassy front woman fronting song after song of reverb-drenched punk pop classics.

We’re no fashion expert but we can confirm the shorts were short, but that need not take anything away from the fact that Heaven Sent and Crazy For You are bona-fide hits worthy of their place in the pantheon with the Primitive’s Crash, Transvision Vamp’s Baby I Don’t Care or the Go Go’s We’ve Got The Beat. Fizzy rock anthem follows fizzy rock anthem with Cosentino commanding the stage in a way that is clearly inspirational to any number of the teenage girls crowding the front of the stage.

Whether there’s some real depth to these pubescent anthems remains to be seen but for now Best Coast are sound tracking teenage dreams in a way that few seem capable of even touching. As they encore with the sublime Boyfriend, a true voice is being heard. Whether you’re too old to get it is up to you.