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Pet Needs
Pet Needs | Image © Chris Perry

Pet Needs

Life’s A Gambol With Pet Needs

Epic Studios, Norwich

There is no time to hang about for these guys. This four-man band from Colchester, who in the fifteen months since deciding to focus full-time on music, have produced two albums, ‘Fractured Party Music’ and ‘Primetime Entertainment’ (both produced by Frank Turner) and scored an opening slot with this season’s hottest ticket, The Lottery Winners and have a fifty-night tour of the USA to negotiate later this year.

Tonight, we get eight fast-paced numbers, starting with Lost Again, followed by Punk Isn’t Dead; It’s Just Up For Sale accompanied by a decent line in patter. In fact, the chat between every couple of songs was as warmly welcomed as the songs. What Pet Needs do is use music as a platform to satisfy a basic need that Maslow may have under-estimated, the need to be entertained and have a laugh.

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In between the patter, in front of a large piece of heavy cardboard carrying the words PET NEEDS in pink, Johnny Marriott hurls himself about the stage. He is a Year 4 boy just let into the playground after a five-minute detention. He’s all arms and legs, running back and forth, twisting his mic lead around and about, as if he has not been shown how to use a skipping rope, but wants to jump up and down anyway.

Contrasting with the previous night’s lairy front man, Tom Meighan, tonight’s Johnny Marriott is a gambolling lamb, released onto fresh pasture for the first time. Watching Pet Needs is all the better for his un-tempered displays of random leaping and kicking, sometimes both at the same time.

George Marriott on lead guitar, is only slightly less manic than his big brother. George is living proof that lead guitarists do not need to stand nailed to the floor with stern faces, but can have license to have fun too.

I dread to think what the Marriott household might have been like on rainy school holidays with these two bouncing off the walls, but their parents can be proud that these two have found a way to channel their Duracell Bunny power. Not that they are kids anymore, Johnny, for example, is married to a very understanding woman and they have a pet dog together. George, on the other hand, seems happy enough playing lead guitar on stages wide enough to bound around on.

All eight songs tonight are hard-nosed punky tunes, a genre that has been labelled as genre-defying intelligent rock. That is as maybe, but it is highly amusing rock, at the very least.

This was the most enjoyable set I have seen since Squat Lobster’s February Christmas show.  We’ve Lost Again, Tracey Emin’s Bed and Toothpaste were highlights of this evening’s performance. The brothers Marriott are heading to the United States with bassist Rich Gutierrez and drummer Jack Lock, after finishing this jaunt around the UK with Thom Rylance and his troupe. I wish them well, America will have a ball.

Pet Needs

Pet Needs will be pitching camp to headline a big gig at Colchester Art Centre on 16th December, 2023. More information can be found on their website https://petneedsband.com which is one of the coolest website designs I have yet to see. They also have some great merchandise too, The Winter in Ibiza t-shirt being a likely collector’s item in years to come. I know that I should have bought one.

You can’t help but like this band. They are even enthusiastic about having a review from GrapevineLIVE, because they remembered reading the magazine in pubs when they were in their late-teens.

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