Pinback – Whelans, Dublin, 25.11.07

I have to be 100% honest and say that up until fairly recently, I had never even heard of Pinback. But someone who’s musical judgement I trust pretty much implicitly raves about them with almost the same rabid intensity I reserve for the Nude Girls (almost!), so when I saw they were playing at my favourite club in Dublin while I just happened to be there on holiday I thought it was a sign. Or something.

Whelans is quite a small venue and it was packed to the hilt by the time Pinback took to the stage, so I figured my friend must be on to something. That, or the Irish will just use any excuse to go out and drink….hmmmm. Pinback have been around since 1998 and come from San Diego in the US. There are only 2 main contributors in the band – a guy with a really long name who calls himself Zach instead, and Rob Crow. It’s quite hard to describe their sound as they’re pretty unique in what they do, but I suppose at a stretch I could call it melodic rock. They both do vocals and their voices blend in a way that is quite superb. There’s a lot of very pretty synth work as well as some good rocking guitars, and they include other people in their live act to flesh their sound out. It’s quite difficult to get into a band that you’ve never heard at all before, particularly when you’re jammed into a room full of people who are all trying to hang onto the heavy coats necessitated by the awful weather outside as well as their precious drinks, but Pinback managed to reel me in. I was quite apprehensive about the high expectations my friend had instilled in me, but on a first listen I’d say I can see why he loves them so much. They were also really chatty with their audience, which is always a plus in my books. All in all, it was definitely worth braving the freezing Irish weather to watch them.

So, if like me you’ve never heard of Pinback before, do yourself a favour and make a plan to check them out. They won’t disappoint you.