Hot band on a cold night

And to be fair, nobody was, but I just had this compulsion to check out Origin, a foursome who cover rock tunes that I was told are slightly different from the main stream.

Opening to a packed Grouse, in Brampton, Chezzy, with When You Were Young and Notion, by The Killers and Kings Of Leon, I slowly began to take notice.

Several cover bands I review tend to base themselves in past decades which is fine I guess, but I do like to hear more contemporary tunes and Origin are happy to oblige, as they did Times Like These, by Foo Fighters, Kasabian’s Fire and other stuff by Green Day and Blink 182, though this effort had seen better days.

To keep the rock purists happy we did have Led Zep’s Rock’n’ Roll, and after the intermission, AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie got decent applause. This was starting to sound more like it, doffing the cap to the classics while keeping the foot reasonably within the past 15 years, which I can live with. If you play too much current stuff, you risk losing parts of the audience who haven’t embraced the latest darlings.

Smacking the tubs and keeping the balance going was Paul and bassist Pete, who also contributed with backing vocals while up front birthday boy and guitarist Luke and vocalist/guitarist Sam gelled well together, both vocally and musically.

With more songs by Muse, Nickelback and Blur I felt happy I’d made the effort to see Origin. Yes, they could’ve tightened up things, had fewer between-song chats and maybe a pint or two less, but as a fun “pub band” I liked them.

Having been a unit in one guise or another for over five years now, they’ve learnt a decent bag of tunes and seemed to work well as a band. It’s called “learning one’s craft”, and if they want to take things to a higher level it’ll be interesting to see how that craft develops.