poppedmusic

The Parrots

The Magnet, 27th August 2016

Words: Gary Lambert

Last year, Liverpool’s Harvest Sun Promotions were asked to put on one of the Heavenly Recordings Birthday Celebrations and it was a day that those in attendance would struggle to forget. These links between one of the British music scene’s greatest labels and the music fans of Liverpool were re-forged with the album launch of Heavenly Recordings latest stars, The Parrots.

It seems illogical to hold the launch of a three piece from Madrid in a retro-styled basement at the top end of a city 1,200 miles from home; but from the start it felt a natural coming together of kindred spirits as from the off the band and audience thrived and motivated each other to further heights.

If you have not yet heard The Parrots, grab a copy of Los Niños Sin Miedo and stick it on next time you are getting ready for a night out. If that doesn’t encourage you, there is a review of the album which was written in my excitement the day after this gig as I could not resist a reminder of the night before by playing and loving.

What do you get from watching The Parrots live? For one, a very sweaty shirt as there is so much energy and heat that even the much appreciated air conditioning in The Magnet’s basement could not save my tee from patches of gig appreciation. And you get a band who throw it all out on stage, look destroyed by the end of the gig and feel utter elation at what has taken place. And as an audience member you can’t help get dragged in to be the same as the band.

To describe their sound to a newcomer, I would say this imagine if instead of John and Paul meeting in Liverpool in the early sixties, it was Mick and Keef instead. They have the riotous pop tunes that The Cavern was synonymous with, but the bluesy skill and grime of those early tracks of The Rolling Stones that never get an airing ahead of their later chorus-based classics. It’s wonderful. And like the ultimate track of that kind, The Kingsmen’s Louie Louie, you cannot really understand a word they sing.

Despite so many tracks seemingly in English, the only singalong of the night came from No Me Gustas, Te Quiero. The call and response element of the chorus reminded me of a lecturer on a Business and Spanish course in my university days telling a room full of freshens “don’t worry if the local students are better at speaking Spanish than you quickly, for some reason the Scouse dialect adapts so quickly to Spanish”.

Their set was not the first time The Parrots took to the stage either. When local support act, The Ohms, played their brilliantly gratifying topless garage rock, a song dedicated to The Parrots saw them on stage singing, dancing and acting like daft young lads with the world at their feet. It showed a great camaraderie between two bands linked only through music.

The Parrots make music that makes you feel like music should. As they’ve already spread their wings, let’s home that they can soar.