Gig review: COLLATERAL – Camden Underworld, London, 26 May 2024

The release of ‘Should’ve Known Better’, their excellent second album (third if you count the album of mainly remixed songs with added special guests ‘Rewired’) is a pivotal moment in Collateral’s chequered career. So it was only fitting that, after a sell out at the Cart and Horses in Stratford earlier this year, the Kent rockers, on the weekend of the album release, played their biggest capital headline show yet at the Underworld.

There was a healthy crowd and even if not sold out, the front section ahead of the venue’s notorious pillar looked as packed as I’d seen it, proof that they have attracted a devoted following, young and older alike. It’s just a shame the lighting seemed more directed at the crowd than the band.

After an intro tape of ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ (maybe not a wise move given their sensitivity to lazy comparisons that refer to their gestation playing Bon Jovi covers) they started in style with ‘Glass Sky’, one of their strongest new songs. It’s already found its way into the live set over the last year so the ‘out of the shadows, we’ll be coming home’ chorus which formed a taped intro chant had people singing along when the song proper started. Louis Malagodi impressed initially with a simple yet funky repeated guitar motif and then with his solo.

Another song that has been broken in over the last couple of years followed in the catchy ‘Sin In the City. Though on ‘Rewired’, it had me wondering if it should also have been on the new album which after all is on the short side.

Album launch it may have been but a number of tried and tested favourites were still in the set in ‘Promiseland’, ‘Lullaby’,and ‘Mr Big Shot’ which the band gave a big climax to. However newie ‘Final Stand’, very melodic despite its downtuned guitar intro, was more substantial.

However I found myself being hyper critical. There are a very diverse set of influences in the band, and I’m not sure they quite cohere to make the band as tight as some of their contemporaries are. Additionally, after initially expanding to a 5 (briefly 6) piece when Louis joined, since Todd Winger departed and he was promoted to lead guitarist, there are times there are big gaps in the sound that a second guitarist might help fill.

The melodic leanings that charismatic singer Angelo Tristan brings were well in evidence, both on a fine recent single ‘On The Long Road’ and an oldie in ‘About This Boy’, culminating as he waved his acoustic guitar from side to side and the crowd replied in kind.

‘No Place For Love’ was another excellent song with a big hook, while my thoughts on a pair of new and old in ‘Game Changer’ and ‘Merry Go Round’ were that the ever smiling rhythm section of drummer Ben Edwards (whose hair seems to be growing spectacularly) and bassist Jack Bentley-Smith are better suited to the heavier rocking side of their repertoire.

They closed with one of their earliest and best loved songs in the melodic rock with a country twinge of ‘Midnight Queen’ to have everyone joining in, and a set that was still on the short side at an hour and five minutes ended with a solitary encore in another impressive new song in ‘Just One Of Those Days’, with a strong Tyketto influence, in my eyes anyway.

My reservations aside, the evening proved that Collateral are moving forward and that with a devoted following and a new album that finally does them justice, their future is as bright as it has been.

Review by Andy Nathan

Photos by Zoran Veselinovic

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)