Newport got a taste of Liverpool’s finest guitar pop tradition last week when The Dream Machine rolled into Le Public Space for a night of full-on psych-pop mayhem.
The band, who carry the torch for a lineage stretching back through the Teardrop Explodes, The La’s, Cast, The Coral and The Zutons, delivered a set that had the Newport crowd well and truly won over by the end of the night.
Rickenbackers rang out across the venue as the band leaned hard into the jangly, swirling sound that has made Liverpool one of the most consistently fertile cities for guitar music in the UK. Big hair, big riffs and plenty of what can only be described as full-on wigouts made for a memorable evening at one of Wales’s most beloved independent music venues.
Le Public Space in Newport has built a solid reputation for booking acts that matter, and The Dream Machine felt like a natural fit for a room that thrives on authentic, guitar-driven music with real personality behind it.
The psych-pop sound the band peddle is not retro for the sake of it. There is genuine energy and forward momentum in what they do, pulling from the past but pushing it somewhere fresh. Fans of classic Merseyside guitar bands would have felt right at home, but there was enough modern grit to keep things feeling relevant rather than like a tribute act.
Newport itself has quietly become one of the more interesting stops on the Welsh live music circuit, with venues like Le Public Space punching well above their weight in terms of the quality of acts they attract. A night like this one is exactly why the city’s music scene continues to draw attention from beyond the Welsh borders.
For anyone who missed it, The Dream Machine are well worth catching next time they make their way to Wales.