Hospital Bombers

We here at 100b try to go see every band we love that passes through these here parts, and thus we’ve had to listen to a vast plethora of support bands, from the surprisingly excellent to the embarrassingly bad. Whenever we hear that a local band will be playing we can’t help but make a face. You know the face, it’s the one people make when their friends put their kids on the phone. You are forced to listen and pretend to like it. We always support the support, because that’s the neighborly thing to do, but we rarely really mean it. It’s like someone walked through town and stopped the very first three piece band that plays for pennies in the street. I’m sorry to say it, because it makes me feel like a traitor in a way, but we’ve learned that the chances that a Dutch support band is actually worth a listen are about as big as the country.

So when we saw that the Hospital Bombers were Art Brut’s support act a few months ago we moaned and groaned as usual. Hospital Bombers?!? What a dumb name, ugh and they’re Dutch. Then they took the stage. Oh my god, what are they? Twelve? But we shut up soon when they started playing. They were actually good! These four kids had their own sound and catchy songs and everything! They were brought up with seventies rock in the background, their lyrics are quirky and fun and we liked every bit of it. I thought maybe we liked them because we were so shocked that they could actually play their instruments, but now that I’m listening to their songs online, they’re still really good. “Kittens” and “Bad Neighbourhood” especially are great poppy songs. They’re not just not bad for a Dutch new band. They are not bad for a new band, period.

Check out their myspace and official site.