{"id":20801,"date":"2016-06-06T12:11:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T11:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/?p=20801"},"modified":"2016-06-06T16:30:35","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T15:30:35","slug":"wheatus-brooklyn-bowl-london-5-june-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/2016\/06\/wheatus-brooklyn-bowl-london-5-june-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Wheatus, Brooklyn Bowl London, 5 June 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wheatus
Wheatus Whole Band – photo credit Lisa Hafey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a very successful tour supporting Busted across the UK and Ireland, the juggernaut that is Wheatus rolled into The Brooklyn Bowl last night, at London’s O2.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The New York based band, which is already 6 strong, also brought with them Chris Bourne (brother of Busted’s James Bourne) and Emma Blackery, both of whom had also supported Busted on tour. An extra special guest on the evening was Joseph Tawadros, an Australian Coptic Egyptian virtuoso on the oud, who\u00a0will be playing a solo concert in London on June 14. See here<\/a> for ticket details.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Ventura Project – photo credit Lisa Hafey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wheatus operate as a close knit family band, and on this occasion had, as their support acts, band members breaking out into their own side projects. First support of the evening was The Ventura Project, which features Wheatus bass guitarist Matthew Milligan, on keyboard\/drum machine, and Wheatus backing vocalist Joey Slater, on guitar.<\/p>\n

\"Joey
Joey Slater – photo credit Lisa Hafey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Explaining that they normally play a rockier set,\u00a0but as Joey commented, it was cheaper for them to bring a drum machine with them than also pay for a drummer, so this time it was just the pair of them. The duo opened their set with a really stripped back and hazy cover of Prince’s, ‘1999’: it took a couple of seconds for us to work out why the song felt very familiar! This was followed by the very lovely ‘Vienna’, an original, not a cover of the Ultravox song (we think anyway).\u00a0\u00a0We’d been told that The Ventura Project was going to be very unlike Wheatus, but their next song, which was co-written and produced with Brendan B Brown, came pretty close. Check out the lovely video\u00a0for ‘Distracted’:<\/p>\n

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