Viernes 28 Ene 2011, 16:30
Fri 21 Jan – Holy Roar Presents...
The last time I was down in London was about eight years ago when I went to ‘Knights of Awesome Power’ to watch Digitonal, Panacea, Dolphin and Scheme Boy play at Club SeOne under London Bridge. It was a hellish night of heavy hitting electronic music. As I stepped off the bus at Victoria station I was instantly reminded of why I left it so long before I made my return. I pretty sure that the local Londoner can spot an ‘out of towner’ instantly, it’s like I had a massive sign aloft my head that read ‘I’m not local, come fuck me up’. I was jolted back and forth by the shoulders of the fast paced commuters scurrying past, trying painfully to end their day as soon as humanly possible. I made it to my resting place for the night hungry and pissed off at the ten hour journey I had just left behind me, got changed, and stuffed an awesome home made chicken pie down my neck before I headed off again into the night. My destination was The Unicorn Pub in Camden; an over ground train and a tube later it was in my sights, though my fear as I was running late was that I had probably missed the first band. But to my surprise as we entered the pub was they were all running late and the first band on hadn’t even arrived yet. Bonus.
The First Band who came straight from the street to the stage were Baptists, a 4 piece band hailing from Norwich fronted by a man who looked very similar to Elbow’s Guy Garvey, if of course he was a tattooed biker hell bent on the destruction of your ear drums. Marching like a madman from left to right on the dance floor in front of the stage emanating his euphonious voice to the world. A fast paced short set that didn’t disappoint the eagerly awaiting crowd, and no sooner did they appear they were gone again into the night to make way for the second band. Up next were Crocus another four piece from the west country, who in my opinion showed the most fluidity of the night. Very musically talented switching with ease from their intricate math driven riffs to slower bass orientated grooves and back again. For me the music and the vocals were partnered to perfection, as quite a few hardcore bands seem to misjudge this partnership and it sometimes just sounds horribly wrong. This was not the case here, thankfully. I’d also like to commend the guitarist on his rather resplendent Beard; I can’t run a site like this without at least a little mention toward the hirsute.
The third band to grace the stage was Pariso whose singer instantly ordered the crowd to come forward ‘or else’ once they obeyed they were straight into action. Hard and fast was the theme of the night and Pariso were nothing but exemplary to this fact, like a battle scene stuck in fast forward as the crowd parted with flailing arms and legs a plenty. At one point the singer used the crouching photographer next to me as a launch pad to project himself forward onto the crowd. As he returned to the stage spitting venom fuel chants at the crowd ‘Fuck you, I hate you all’ nobody cared. Each and every soul fully immersed in the music and the atmosphere. There came another shout from the stage: ‘someone better buy me a beer, I’m not fucking joking’… I wonder if anyone actually did? Probably. The die-hard front of stage dwellers went absolutely mental as the band stormed into their very own rendition of Burn the Lies by Hatebreed, with screams into an out held mic from the front man as the band/crowd participation became even more distinguished. As the band finished I retreated to the bar to escape having my head smashed into my camera anymore than it already had been, watching a gig through a lens can sometimes be quite an ordeal so for the next band I decided to stay a little further back.
The fourth and final band and tonight’s headline act were Maths, by this point though my attention was drawn away from the stage as a bar stool narrowly missed my face in mid flight. It seemed some very angry crowd member had lost one of his luminous juggling balls (who brings juggling balls to a gig anyway) and decided to take it upon himself to launch everything in his path into the air in a bid to find them. Waddadick. Anyway from the little attention I did pay to what was going on up on stage I gathered that the drummer was very talented indeed, and that was about it. Sorry Maths, blame the testosterone fuelled phantom juggler who tried decapitating me with a bar stool!
However, this didn’t put a dampener on the night and it was by all means worth the ten hour journey down to London to watch. I would love to see Holy Roar put on another night, however next time maybe try to venture out away from The Big Smoke and a little further north, give us country folk the chance to hurl some bar stools in our local cesspool.
MATHS
- www.myspace.com/mathsband
PARISO
- www.myspace.com/pariso1
CROCUS
- www.myspace.com/crocusband
BAPTISTS
- http://www.myspace.com/bastardbaptists