Contact! Contact!

When it comes to a pre-gig sound check, most bands go for the conventional "One, Two" routine. Tellison, a pop-punk four-piece hailing from Hammersmith, decide to do things differently, and instead opt to sing the infuriatingly catchy theme tune from 90's British sitcom, 'Birds of a Feather'. This light-hearted nature of the band is one of their most endearing qualities, and proves a successful tactic for getting the crowd hooked into the gig. The first Tellison gig I went to personally was two years ago in the venue formally-known-as Barfly, and its a joy to see how much the band have progressed since.

They open their set with recently released single, Wasps Nest; a brilliant example of Tellison's capability to write the classic three-minute, pop-punk song which most bands of the same genre fall short of being able to do. However, although this style of song-structure is the bands real forte, they have the ability to be more diverse, with some of their new material having a slower-paced and more intimate feel to it. The variety in their material enables the band to appeal to everyone in the venue, which was proved to be true with the great applause that followed each song, with New York, New York, New York being a firm favourite. The best way to describe how the band play live is that the they just seem to want to enjoy themselves when on stage, regardless of crowd size, or how esteemed the venue is that they're playing in. An increasingly rare aspect to live music these days, with too many bands being more pre-occupied with image rather than putting on an entertaining show.

As well as being great musicians on stage, they are one of the most approachable bands off it, with lead singer Stephen Davidson urging the crowd to come up and speak to the band after the show, and gives up the rest of his night to talk to as many people as is possible. Tellison are a group who have progressed in leaps and bounds in the past two years, which promises great things for whats to come for them, (with their recent support slot for Biffy Clyro being a justification for the hype). Definitely a group who deserve their rapidly expanding fan-base, and a band that we'll be seeing a lot more of in the future.

http://www.myspace.com/tellison