Typical: you wait months for a good rocking live band, then three come along at once! On the evening of Saturday, 5th June, at the Prince of Wales in Caversham, we were treated to two young local bands, Roadhouse and Garage Flowers, followed by Less Than Me, a more established band from Plymouth.

Roadhouse were up first. I missed the first part of their set (being late back from holiday), but what I heard was excellent. Their sound is very heavy, being based around a really solid rhythm section – if it had been my drum kit I’d have been worried, the drummer was hitting them so hard – but also very creative and ambitious. They weren’t afraid to throw in colour and dynamic variation: slow and fast, loud and soft, melodic and thumping rock. I find them hard to categorise to anything tighter than exciting heavy rock. I heard elements of grunge, funk, punk, maybe even pop (if you can call a Kinks cover ‘pop’). Roadhouse have only been together a short while (the drummer, Wanda, used to be part of Woo), and occasionally it shows, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find I have to go to a much bigger venue to see them next year.

Next up were Garage Flowers. If Roadhouse didn’t really fall into any standard category, Garage Flowers seemed to me to fall into several – they were almost a one-band summary of late-twentieth-century English rock. From the staring at their shoes whilst singing with a slightly wimpy-sounding voice (sorry, there’s probably a nicer way to put that, but I can’t think of it at the moment), to jingley-jangley guitar sounds, to a solidly rocking rhythm section, it was all there, blended together into a well-polished Britpop melange. All-in-all they played an enjoyable set – compared to Roadhouse I would say they were more coherent but less exciting.

Finally we had Less Than Me, an older and clearly more experienced five-piece. Their vocalist prowled across the room, presumably seeking to ‘own the stage’, the bass player was in his own headbanging world (against convention: I tend to expect bassists to just stand, solid as a rock, or maybe march forward and back like Dr Feelgood’s John Sparkes), whilst the drummer laid down a masterclass in careful, intelligent drumming. The overall sound was rather like Red Hot Chili Peppers with Rush’s Geddy Lee on vocals. Actually, at first I thought they sounded a bit too derivative of the Chili Peppers, but they soon moved away to a more individual – although clearly Chili-influenced – style. As headliners they had the longest set; having had a long day, I had found a seat during the interval before they started, but it really wasn’t music I could sit down to (although it wasn’t really music for dancing to either). It was a very good set, good music well-played, but somehow it never quite caught fire. This was a shame as they are a talented hard-working band, and it must be a bit depressing when you put your heart into playing but don’t quite get the full response from your audience.

It was a hot evening yesterday, and the outside area of the Prince of Wales was heaving, whilst indoors (where the bands were playing) was a lot quieter. Roadhouse and Garage Flowers both brought their own bunches of young fans with them, who stood in a crowd up close to the bands. Less Than Me, being from further away, didn’t bring much of their own support. It was interesting to watch their crowd as the set progressed: initially they pulled in the youngsters to the central area, but they didn’t seem to hold them and most drifted away. Where they did slowly draw in a crowd was round the edges, where a much more age-diverse group of people were coming along for a listen, then staying. By the end the crowd wasn’t too bad, but it was spread around three sides of a square, with just a few of us in the middle. I imagine it must have looked quite peculiar from the band’s perspective.

In summary: another great evening of music at the Prince of Wales. My wife and I, at the end of our holiday week, walked down and had a really good time; the evening was warm, the Oxford Gold was excellent drinking, and I bought Less Than Me’s CD, Crawl, Walk, Party, so I can continue to enjoy the music. I don’t know who’s on next Saturday, there’s nothing on the Facebook page yet, but I do urge you to support local live music, as well as community pubs that serve good beer.