One Night Only, The Waterfront

Time is a major factor for One Night Only. It’s used in pretty much every song and it’s very much on their side. Selling out a whole tour and reaching number 10 with debut album ‘Started a Fire’ at their young age is an impressive feat, and they really are connecting with a wide audience by the looks of this crowd. Lyrically they are by no means perfect, ‘Start over/It’s all over’, it’s hardly poetic, but there’s time.

As a live band they have enough about them to keep going and work out these little nuisances. There is an enthusiasm you would expect from a young band who look like they could well be playing their school’s battle of the bands, keyboardist Jack Sails practically head butting a hole in his keyboard, guitarist Mark Hayton nodding emphatically along to himself and lead singer George Craig’s deep voice sounds straight from the record all in their Topman dress.

Latest single and album standout, ‘It’s About Time’ sounds just as good in the flesh, just as anthemic and the crowd know every word, the growling ‘It’s Alright’ and second single ‘Just For Tonight’ do nothing but back up One Night Only’s label of exciting prospects. But there is very little variety to the set though with the exception of an acoustic version of ‘Sweet Sugar’ played by Craig only, its cringe-worthy, straight from school science lessons chorus of ‘you’re my/ C6 H12 O6/ sweet sugar’ sounds less embarrassing and comical in acoustic form, but still only slightly. Every song is synth backed radio friendly indie-guitar pop, with a certain amount of filler it seems, nothing overly interesting and this is going to be key to them evolving. They could so easily head down the route of being predictable young indie kids, and when the tag of being ‘young’ wears off, something, a depth, needs to be added, if not now.