Gym Class Heroes - Glasgow Barfly - 11th September 2006
Rock and Rap have never been the easiest of bedfellows. For every success like Aerosmith meets Run DMC or some of the Judgement Night Soundtrack there has been abominations like Linkin Park and Jay-Z….or some of the Judgement Night Soundtrack. Gym Class Heroes hail from New York and if it wasn’t for the vocals of Travis McCoy, they could quite easily pass for a pretty fine indie/rock act. With the guitars and keyboard merging well and the backline drums and bass pushing the songs on, the base is set for McCoys lyrical flows, and unlike the popular preconception of the genre, theres no violence or aggression from GCH. Sure, a bit of female chasing kicks in from time to time but that aside, its all about good vibes.
It also seems as though the time is right for GCH. Most bands advocate myspace, this act has got a song written about the dating potential of the site and if that wasn’t enough of the zeitgeist for you, the bands music feature heavily in the first twenty minutes of Snakes On A Plane, no wonder the young but excitable crowd was going crazy for them.
With hands pumping the air before the band arrived, the crowd was whipped further into a mini frenzy by the usual shout outs and requests to finger the air. It was all becoming a bit predictable until a song kicked in which seemed to cross The Beatles ‘Dear Prudence’ with Coolio’s ‘C U When U Get There’ and when the music paused, the crowd launched into a full singalong, which even seemed to take the band by surprise, a moment that immediately put the gig above many of its rivals for sheer excitement levels.
Overall, it was a good set and the enjoyment factor was pretty high throughout, without ever really kicking in too much, although ‘Papercuts’ had the crowd in raptures. With a song which leans on heavily on Supertramps ‘Breakfast In America’ on ‘cupids Chokehold’ which could dominate commercial radio if it was released any time soon, this may be the time for Gym Class Heroes to make the breakthrough.
This Review First Appeared in
