•• Action Plan @ The Buffalo Club, London, 10 June 2004
•• Published: SoundsXP, June 2004
•• Original article: http://www.soundsxp.com/921.shtml

When playing gigs at smaller, spit and sawdust venues like Islington's Buffalo Club it's important that a band have some kind of presence to ensure they leave an impression on their audience. Something to allow their music to elevate them a bit further above the crowd than the four inches the tiny stage affords them. Action Plan have the advantage of a frontman who appears to be a hybrid between Gaz from Supergrass and the boy from About a Boy and a drummer who looks like Patrick Kielty would if he was in the world's first rugby team boyband to help gain the crowd’s attention.

Appearances aside, their music is heavy and direct with occasional ska-tinged Police references and mini forays into experimental Radiohead territory; guitarist Ian McCullagh making reverb-soaked psychedelic seagull noises as he strokes his plectrum up and down the strings, skipping frantically from one effects pedal to the next.

As for the lyrics? Well, as is often the case in small cave-like cellar clubs they could not be heard to be honest but this was an energetic lively performance and whatever the words were frontman Nial Doherty seemed to passionately mean every inaudible, drowned out one of them.

They have the energy, the passion and, perhaps, the belief, it's just a shame their name sounds like a government employment scheme. Whether being a bunch of journalists will help or hinder their career remains to be seen, repeating fellow hack-band Gay Dad's brief pan-flash will be something they no doubt wish to avoid, but one thing we can assume from this is that they probably don't need any assistance in getting media coverage for themselves… so let's just leave it there for now.