This is an exceptional gig venue for anyone who’s up and coming, anyone who’s trying to be noticed or just plain anyone really! The space is really intimate and interaction between audience and band can take place because both are so close and therefore so exposed to one another – its great. You even get a stage with a lighting rig, come on people what more can you ask for? Good music I hear you cry, ok here we go:
As an opening act to the evening, BEDHED were really good. Really into the music they’d written, really happy to be performing for the audience, (which was quite small at this point in the evening), but – and without sounding too condescending – they just need a bit more time to develop as a band.
Individually the band members were great, the drummer was particularly talented making good use of syncopated rhythmical timing – go on, call me a wanker for slipping that in there! The guitarist seemed a bit nervous, although they did slip some solos into the songs for him, and he was competent enough, pretty class in some places, the bassist didn’t stand out for any reason, and the singer was a bit of a pretty boy front man, but he gave the audience what they wanted, closed his eyes in all the right emotional places, flicked his hair about and most importantly, he had a fucking good voice.
Musically they were diverse within their chosen genre of emo soft rock, if you know Dashboard Confessional then you know where I’m headed.Conclusion: a good band but give them a few more years and they should be better.
When I first saw BRUISE I thought ‘woman guitarist and singer, hardcore’ but unfortunately she played with her thumb holding down the strings so I don’t think that really counts up there in the hardcore stakes.
It was a three piece band and as a front woman she seemed really nervous of the crowd and really tense, she knew how to move with her instrument and a beautifully earthy, silky, ‘I want to lick you all over’ voice, but unfortunately as a band they weren’t diverse enough. All the beginnings of the songs had potential but unfortunately they went on too long and the set list was far too similar. You could see what they were trying to do as a band, conceptualist ‘we don’t need to play our instruments properly because we have a female singer’, but unfortunately they didn’t quite reach it. Although the two other musicians were good enough at their instruments, it didn’t matter because they got boring. In conclusion, too much concept, not enough music.
Oh my God, please go and see BUGWIG if you get a chance people – take my word for it, they fuckin rule! Go see them, right now, or go to www.bugwig.com and check them out.
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I definatly did not expect what I got. Picture this if you will: a bearded bassist, a nose pierced singer with an electric acoustic, a fairly normal looking guitarist and a scarf wearing drummer, and then imagine hearing a jazz fusion funk band with George ‘when I’m cleanin’ winda’s’ Formbie as a singer playing the guitar like a ukulele, singing comedy songs like ‘Monkey’, and ‘Give me your Shoes’ (which is about seducing a real, real woman), and lyrics such as “nicer than me you just cant get nicer than me cos I’m so incredible” and “all this time and you never told me you were gay” and you have Bugwig.
They fuckin rock, I can’t stress enough how good they are. All phenomenal musicians, all good looking, (which is obviously important), and they had great contact with their audience. They talked to us and cracked funny jokes, (again very important), and they were comfortable on stage which made the audience comfortable to watch them, bonus. In conclusion, a must see for everyone.
Before I start on DRINK ME, I must stress what I'm about to say is purely my own opinion. And so saying lets get down to it, I though this band sucked. Don’t get me wrong, musically they were very talented, but don’t come on stage and feed me with your passé, cliché, art novo bollox. Please. I don’t care how cool you think you obviously think you are, I’m not interested in your ‘holier than thou’ attitude on stage. Just because you wear a tie over your Mickey Mouse t-shirt and have hair like the singer from the cure, an outfit you spent hours trying to put together just so you could pretend you hadn’t noticed doesn’t give you licence to play me music with no soul. Go away, listen to some Bill Hicks and come back when you stop trying to be clever. But please remember this is just my humble opinion, the crowd there seemed to really like them.
The music was competent but I didn’t really pay attention and as soon as the bassist did the whole ‘I’m a pouty female bassist’ thing I lost all interest and left before they finished their set.Conclusion: too much image.
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