iLIKETRAINS, Division Day October 14th 2007

iLIKETRAINS are an interesting band with a very British sound (to my ears), Being guided to ¡Forward,Russia! by Steve Lamacq I very soon expanded my horizon's to other bands on Whiska's and co's Dance to The Radio Record Label plus friends. There is a whole slew of music out there including demos which allow you to see the full breadth of this band's talent. http://www.thisgreenandpleasantland.com/ This Green and Pleasant Land is a very comprehensive fansite for this band and one interesting footnote is that Zack from that site though actually from Washington State was in New England for the weekend and managed to attend this gig. It was really nice to see the band both name check him during the gig but also pull him into their post-gig meal.
The website describes the band as
'iLiKETRAiNS are a band as obsessed with history as they are with the dramatic music they create to tell it. Hailing from Leeds, they offer something completely unique to its vibrant music scene, described by The Guardian as "grand and slightly unapproachable civic music, less to be listened to and more to be visited like a museum or war memorial, and all the more interesting because of it." The Times referred to them as the leaders of "library rock"' in their piece on the band describing their passion for history and the somewhat gloomy demise of the industrial era, and NME descried them 'brilliant, unique, wry... at odds with pop's present trends.'
After seeing the band come into the venue in normal clothes they disappeared up to the box-office to change into their stage outfits of 'British rail uniforms' really just black trousers white shirts black ties and black armbands.
They have a slideshow that accompanies the show with suitable pics.
The setlist stated by the website is
1 Twenty Five Sins
2 A Rook House For Bobby
3 We Go Hunting
4 The Deception
5 Terra Nova
6 Spencer Perceval

Though I remember the gig starting with A rook House, not twenty five sins. Switching between using flash or not i managed to at least get some images from the slide show.
We Go Hunting was preceded by discussion about the fact it is about the Salem witch hunts. They were asking how many folks had been to Salem mentioning they hadn't (they drove in from Washington an exhausting 10 hour drive. Why do these booking agents not take into account just how large and sometimes undrivable America can be.)
There were a few jokes about not being there during the hunts.
Despite the moody dark music which isn't exactly mosh material, the guitar work was quite energetic at times, almost manic.
It was a short set but one to treasure. We had wanted to see them at SXSW but the only show they did was at the same time as we were seeing The Automatic, Jamie T and Sunshine Underground so they lost out. So it was real treat for the guys to get to Boston and this time I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Division Day were an after thought, a band we hadn't had time to listen to (hey you have to see our concert agenda for Fall, three night with two concerts a night). So when they started we thought stay for a few and assess. We actually started to realize this is a very sweet little band that we should be behind. Some songs are better than others, they do suffer from the standard American Indie issues but seem to have new songs that go above and beyond this to be promising little songs.
We had a chat with the guitarist and he was telling us about their record company woes (BOO HISS) and the fact that they have a second album already to go but they wanted to try and get some mileage and play the songs from Beartrap Island. We also talked to the drummer, Kevin, hearing the same story as we bought the album. We would definitely go see this band again.
Photos should be on flickr soon but there was a lot of red eye to sort.