Awesome night of rock with The Crave & friends! | livemusic.fm

The Crave (http://www.thecrave.co.uk/) have been writing great radio-friendly, blood pumping rock & gigging hard for a few years now & have just released their debut album 'Breaking the Silence' to critical acclaim and the delight of their fans.

They really know how to put on a good show & have masses of energy and a great rapport with the audience. Having toured with some great bands as support, this is their first headline tour in a while and they are certainly making the most of it.

Opening for The Crave tonight were Hope & State (http://www.myspace.com/hopeandstate) who did a good job warming up the crowd and there was more head-nodding, foot tapping and enthusiastic applause with each song in their half hour set. They were a good choice and seemed to go down well with the crowd.

Next up were Tiger Please (http://www.myspace.com/tigerplease) who put on a rousing show and clearly had some fans of their own who had turned up to see them.  Their music has a more indie feel than either The Crave or Hope & State which gave a different flavour to the evening, and although the crowd were clearly gagging for The Crave I did feel they had 'gone off the boil' a tad after Hope & State had pumped them up. This certainly doesn't detract from Tiger Please's performance - they were solid performers with some catchy songs and I know they have a healthy fan-base of their own and will go far.

Then The Crave took to the stage after their dark & moody intro tune and blew the crowd away with a new song, Set Me Free (this song isn't on the new album as the band just keep writing new & epic songs and just feed them into their shows, but I'm sure it's destined for their second album). These guys are great performers and gifted musicians and Islington Academy is a sell out tonight as a testament to their fantastic songs and their energetic live shows. The exact playing order escapes me as I was too busy rocking out, but I know I heard All of You, Weight of the World, Breaking the Silence, Mercenary Man (with some great crowd participation...luckily everyone brought their singing voices with them!), Spinning Wheel to give everyone a chance to catch their breath, Silently Screaming (a masterpiece of a slow-burner with a great kick), one of my favourite oldies, The Stray (which is one of the bonus tracks if you buy the album download from iTunes) and they finished with Cooking in the Kitchen, one of their most lively songs and which should soon have a video too! I know there were more, but I have gig neck & a bit of a headache today ;)

Whenever The Crave play live, they scoop up more fans who have got hooked on these catchy rock songs and the friendliness of the guys who always come out and say hi, sign stuff, have photos taken etc after the show. One girl, Anna had travelled 900 miles from Sweden with her folks to be here tonight to see The Crave. I think that says enough really -go and see them! You will not be disappointed.