The Pierces

Cambridge Junction | 15 October 2011

This is the 1970’s as they weren’t but the way we like to remember them nevertheless. No Jim Callahan, no three-day week, no stagflation, Berni Inns or On The Buses; just sun-drenched songs and aching harmonies pitched somewhere along the road from 1967 to 1985 taking in all waypoints including Mamas & Papas, peak Fleetwood Mac and The Bangles.

Catherine & Allison Pierce cut an arresting on-stage presence mixing coy Southern charm and cutesie accents with Cleoptran cheekbones, Ali McGraw circa 1972 Navajo forehead jewellery, the hint that they could each hold their own in a Tequila drinking context and be really quite filthy later. The stuff of a thousand schoolboy fantasies but more of that in a moment.

Aesthetic considerations aside, these gals can really sing blending power with grace. Most of the set was taken from the recent You & I album. While the influences are undeniable, there is a muscularity in the live and studio performances that create a clear margin of originality. This dominance of the new album is understandable given the sales success of the singles already have the ring of classics about them. But it was a missed opportunity not to introduce older material to a receptive audience. A nicely judged Kathy’s Song as one of two encores was a low-key but effective showcase for their obvious vocal talents.

The audience response was neatly divided across gender lines. Virtually everybody in the in the place had been sixteen sometime in the 1970s and so the blokes were surfing a wave of endorphins and Lowenbrau that took them back to the imagined Californian beach of their youth. The women meanwhile, wore that looked of pinched irritation reserved for when Waitrose sell out of Chilean Sea Bass early on a Saturday or they are asked to engage in recreational sex more than once a week.

And so after a slightly-too-short set of just after over an hour we all trudged out to get back into the Volvo and Audi Estates for the drive back home across the chilly Cambridgeshire Fens.....