It was back in early 2007 that drummer Andy Brow decided he wanted to return to playing after an absence of almost 15 years. His two sons, Matt & Jack, were given their first electric guitars as birthday presents and as part of the festivities a rehearsal room was booked to put the new gear through its paces. Unbeknown to Andy, a drum kit was in the rehearsal room and when he was asked to join in he was hooked again. Spartacus, Lost & Found  and 3-piece line-up The Warehouse Girls figure in the list of bands Andy had previously played with locally as well as appearing in the Rock Open several times, so the experience was there, all he had to do was to pull a band together - oh, and buy himself a kit. At the same time, bassist Rob Jaques was also recruiting - he was short of a drummer, Andy short of a bass player and when they were joined by vocalist Vicky Maw the line-up had evolved. The original guitarist who incidentally came up with the band's name, was replaced by Chris Rowbotham and Mosquito were born.

 

The band played their first gig at Bondz in June 2007 and continued on the local circuit with increasing success until December when Vicky Maw left the band to emigrate to Canada. Losing your lead singer would be a pretty major blow to most bands, but as fate would have it, at Vicky's last gig (The Lock, Stock & Barrel in Crowle) they met up with Emma Hudson. Emma had previously sung with Faded Elbow and accepted the invitation to join Mosquito completing the present line-up.

 

The band played their first gig with Emma at The Lock, Stock & Barrel (a venue which they name as one of their favourites) back in March 2008 and are currently going from strength to strength building up a local following. Their live set consists of mainly indie covers - "stuff we like, modern and popular" as Andy describes it. You will therefore, likely as not, hear material ranging from The Killers to Green Day and from Feeder to The Raconteurs and all this ably performed by a lady singer. With Emma Hudson fronting the band of course, this enables them to cast their net wider and cover material by other female-led acts including Pink, No Doubt and The Cranberries to name but a few. Their live act is always evolving and they are keen to improve by adding new songs and carefully honing the established material - you can usually catch a rehearsal at The Barge Inn on a Monday night.

 

Watching Mosquito live, you could be forgiven for thinking that they had all been gigging for years but in fact neither Chris Rowbotham nor Rob Jaques have ever figured in any other bands prior to this. Rob, to me, is the archetypal bass player on stage, cool, laid back and lets the bass do the talking. Chris on the other hand is everything you would expect a guitarist to be - up front, lively and he really performs, enjoying every minute (a bit of a guitar connoisseur too).

There is also an element of humour in a Mosquito gig, whether its intentional, when Emma explains that "a cross-hair is not a very angry rabbit" prior to Franz Ferdinad's "Take Me Out" or decidedly unintentional, when drummer Andy Brow accidentally (and regularly) knocks his spectacles off during a fill.

At the end of the day, with Mosquito, what you see is very much what you get - four talented musicians enjoying what they do. 

 

For up to date gig listings visit the Mosquito MySpace website at: