Port O'Brien – Borderline, London, 18/08/09

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Foot-stompingly-good Port O’Brien delighted the crowd at the Borderline with a healthy mix of old and new songs last Tuesday. The band seemed energetic and refreshed, excited to be playing songs from their forthcoming record Threadbare, the follow up to 2007′s brilliant All We Could Do Was Sing.

Singer Van Pierszalowski, in particular, was animated, jumping about and clearly enjoying himself. The band had an extra dose of brilliance courtesy of Two Gallants maestro Tyson Vogel hammering away on the drums. Just watching Vogel drum is exhausting; he puts every ounce of energy in his skinny, unassuming body into hitting the drums as hard as humanly possible.

Set highlight came in the form of massive sing-a-long ‘I Woke Up Today’ with the entire room alive and singing along with the band. A delight to see live, I would recommend catching the band on their return to Britain in the autumn. Port O’Brien play London’s Scala on November 24th.

All photos by Anika Mottershaw