Fighting With Wire at The Hydrant, Brighton

Last week I went to see Fighting With Wire at The Hydrant in Brighton. Hailing from Derry, Northern Ireland and formed in 2003, this band, quite frankly, baffles me.

They are loud yet melodic, their songs stay stuck in your head in the best possible way and they make more noise than most three pieces could ever hope to, they’re pretty near perfect in fact – but there were only thirty people in the audience. Thirty people? How is that even possible? We travelled an hour to be there and this is Brighton, surely there are plenty of people who are just a five minute stroll away!

I first saw Fighting With Wire on the back of their first album Man Vs Monster in 2008. It was at the The Hamptons in Southampton, which is a small venue by all accounts, and it was one of those nights where you think, “I’m so freakin’ lucky to be here because before long the secret will be out and they will never play venues this small again.”

The second time I saw them was in the Prince Albert in Brighton, where they played to a crowd so small that it felt slightly uncomfortable and stalker-ish to be singing along to their songs. And now in 2012, here we were again – in a venue that seemed fitting only for local bands. But these guys? They should be so much bigger than that and the depressing thing is that they know it too.

After what appears to be a series of cock-ups by management and labels they still aren’t getting the recognition they deserve. But finally they are releasing what front man Cahir O’Doherty laughingly refers to as the ‘new’ album, Colonel Blood, made what must feel like a billion years ago. Hopefully very soon they will be consistently playing to the size crowd that they deserve, because hell I’ve seen some pretty average bands play some pretty big venues in my time and these three need to be heard.

To be fair they have had success, they have toured with bands such as Biffy Clyro and InMe, which must make the incredibly delayed release of their second album even more frustrating for them. They bought out an EP, I Am Ursus, in 2010 to fill the void but I’m sure it did little to eliminate the frustration that they must have been feeling.

So there you go, a bit of a rant today from a bemused lady who for the third time saw Fighting With Wire play to an unbelievably small crowd but still give it their all and sound every bit as good as they do on their records. Everyone Needs a Nemesis puts a smile on my face every time!

The moral of this story is go and check out Man Vs Monster today, and if you don’t like it? I. Will. Fight You. Not really, if you don’t like Fighting With Wire that is absolutely fine, but at least give them a try, they are damn well worth a listen.

www.fightingwithwire.co.uk