Saturday 17th March 07 - Turismo and The Johnsons at Yo-Yo at The Welly Club (2/2) By Michelle Dee Turismo Photos by Rob Cranmer, Johnsons Photos by Gareth Jones

(1/2), (2/2),

Photograph Gallery   Johnsons Gallery,   Turismo Gallery 1,   Gallery 2,   Gallery 3.

Turismo open with a track taken from their latest album Too Small For Passion called Kamikaze Valentines and the six piece band set out their stall of crowd pleasing catchy tunes. I'm loving Presty's guitar on Good Enough To Eat and all the kiddas go wild for front man Baggott, threatening to trash the Welly Club. A monitor almost goes over after the second song and explosions of exuberance permeate like a tidal wave throughout the crowd. Adoration mixes with mayhem as the big horn sound rings out from Skank (trombone) and Rachel (trumpet) for Loz In The Water - a song inspired by the Landaus front man.

Then without a seconds let up, that young scamp Will has climbed on stage and Baggott appears to take a shine to him. The intro to Oh How You've Changed see's Paul and Will sharing the mic side by side; it really is a moment to savour. It's nothing short of criminal that Turismo haven't made the leap.

They reached the ceiling of Hull's scene and just haven't had that one piece of luck that gets them national notoriety. They have probably played every venue in the country at least twice. They played the Unsigned Stage at Leeds Carling Fest in 05. In 06 they played at Wireless and Baggott knows how many other shows in between.

You want strong songs, you want personalities, you want originality, you want fine musicianship, you want a strong following, you want dedication, devotion? Turismo's got all this and more. Paul lays on his back midway through the song, knees in the air as he belts out the lyrics.

Paul announces that he's lost the set list but the way the set is peppered with a strong mix of new songs and old favourites adds more to the greatest show on earth. Picture Of You comes next and every song's a winner featuring backing vocals from Knocker (bass) and Skank. Then were straight back to the older stuff and Spitting At Llamas with Rich on drums knocking ten balls out of the kit. There's drum rolls flashes and crashes high hat attack and vocals to boot.

While we're on the nostalgia trip Turismo air the acoustic fave, Skegness. Thunderous waves of percussion from the back coupled with the pointy bass line. Hark, me hears a trumpet and a trombone - a signal for the mosh pit to go nuts. Sing along if you know it says Baggott as the band encourage us all to Break The Law, and most of us do, (ahem) sing that is. And it's Presty's guitar again and a line contained within that sounds like an homage to the Hull classic Hi Honey I'm Homo by Santa's Bugga Boyz.

A brass bonanza for a song penned by Turismo and Lloyd Paddington, then from nowhere Grant (Padds drummer) grabs the mic and helps Turismo deliver a punkylite number with a sunny reggae twist. The club is getting hotter and hotter and everyone is screaming at the stage. There's one or two attempts at stage diving and crowd surfing and its all going off.

The chanthem Chinese Tortures comes with echoic guitars aplenty. Lively bass and brass combine with echoes on the main vocals too. We sing. We dance. We jump up and down during the chorus. We love it. Then...We love Michelle and we love Turismo!!! says Joy.

The finale is the riot-inducing Rabbi To Rabbi. A manic musical menagerie closes what was probably one of my best Yo-Yo nights ever. Vote for The Johnsons on the Road To V Festival competition: www.roadtov.com/profile/12896 www.myspace.com/thejohnsonsuk www.myspace.com/turismouk Photographs courtesy and Copyright ©  Rob Cranmer and Gareth Jones 2007

Photograph Gallery   Johnsons Gallery,   Turismo Gallery 1,   Gallery 2,   Gallery 3.

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