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    Review: CD102.5 Holiday Show Side A

    It’s Chriiiiiiiiiiiiistmas! Or, at least, it’s Christmas concert season, and for CD102.5 that means not one, but two value packed concerts cram packed with a mix of some of the best established and up and coming talent currently taking up airtime on our treasured local radio station.

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    Friday night’s Side A show featured four bands that all know how to put on a show and perform headline-worthy sets of high energy crowd pleasing sing-along as a mostly sold-out Express Live! crowd packed into the venue to see Radattack, Just Loud, Albert Hammond Jr and The Struts perform.

    First up were fresh faced local rock and roll stars in the making, Radattack, whose ballsy back-to-basics old school guitar fuelled rock proved to be the perfect opener for an evening of high-tempo in-your-face noise as the foursome of youngsters, led by guitarist/vocalist Henry Velour, blitzed through their buzz-rock set packed with Kiss-influenced jumps, poses and over the top jams. Keep an
    eye on these guys.

    Just Loud were a bit of a surprise as I admittedly didn’t know much about them. Opening with a beautiful, yet static cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” the three-piece quickly turned up the party-meter and jumped into back-to-back soul-dance hits including recent single “Soul Train” that’s seen significant airplay on CD102.5.

    Albert Hammond Jr was next up, and after looking genuinely surprised by the number of people in the venue, the Strokes guitarist launched into a laid-back set of easily enjoyable indie rock as the dazzlingly dressed frontman prowled the stage while occasionally dropping into physically impossible shapes as he and his band belted out hits from recent release Francis Trouble along with radio friendly numbers from Hammond’s previous LPs.

    The majority of the crowd stuck around for the evenings headliners, and shortly after 10:15pm the British glam-rock four-piece The Struts took to the stage for an over then top set of classic retro-rock that’s almost impossible not to enjoy as ring leader and permanently smiling Luke Spiller spent almost the entire set running from one side of the stage to the other making sure that everyone in the audience was having a good time as he and his band belted out arena-friendly rock that made for the perfect end to the start of the feel good season of the year.

    Side B has a lot to live up to, and takes place on Sunday night for a sold out show at Express Live!

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    Matt Ellis
    Matt Ellishttps://www.instagram.com/3songsandgone/
    Matt Ellis is a freelance photographer who covers music that happens in the city and the Columbus Crew SC home games. More photography from Matt can be found at his Instagram page.
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