I got confirmation on tonight’s show
20 minutes before doors were due to open so I
grabbed my camera and took the hour drive to Bristol
to make it in time for the support act Swound!.
When I got to the venue I was shocked at how
empty it was there was only about 60 people so
I went and spoke to one of the bouncers who informed
me that only 376 tickets had sold in advanced
which was pretty bad considering that the venue
can hold up to 1800 people at any one time.
Luckily just as swound! took to the stage at 8.30pm
the venue was starting to fill up a little bit
more, the members of Swound! took to the stage
one by one in their own random way appearing from
different locations and they wasted no time at
all blasting off into their Weezer-esque nerd
rock.
Swound! are made up of 4 brothers and hail from
Nottingham and tonight they proved that they are
the full package, they played a 30minute set and
each and every track that they played sounded
solid and there certainly were no fillers in tonight’s
set, there were a few mindless hecklers at the
back of the venue shouting out “Your shit,
get off”, but Swound! dealt with this extremely
well by totally ignoring it and rocking out instead.
 In between songs the band interacted with the
crowd a lot and even got the crowd mega excited
when they threw a Freddo and Kinder Surprise into
the crowd as presents, the main highlights of
the set were when they played their current single
‘In My Head’ and also the closing
track ‘Into The Sea’ which saw the
guitarist leave the stage and take a tour around
the venue posing for fan photos whilst knocking
out some great riffs, whilst a breathtaking drum
solo brought the set to an end.
 Electric Six took to the stage 30minutes later
and the great thing about Electric Six is looking
at them you would think that 6 randoms just got
brought off the street to perform tonight as looking
at the band members you really wouldn’t
associate them together but that is just part
of the comical charm that is Electric Six.
They managed to play 18 tracks tonight and it
was the legendary singles ‘High Voltage’
and ‘Gay Bar’ which really got the
venue moving, yet eyes were on Dick Valentine
for the whole set as he is one unusual front man
who even dropped to the floor and did 10 press
ups during ‘Hello! I See You’ and
returned to his vocals seconds later with no breath
taken out of him, and in between songs he had
a lot of banter with the crowd which mainly consisted
of a comical political theme.
The only downside of the show was seeing how
empty the Academy was tonight, when Electric Six
released ‘Gay Bar’ back in 2003 they
were selling out venues this size so it was slightly
disappointing knowing that they couldn’t
even sell a quarter of tickets this time around
but then again Christmas is on the horizon and
yet another recession which could be a small factor
of tonight’s poor attendance..
 Overall despite the poor turn out tonight was
a great night, Swound! showed positive signs of
a band who we will be hearing from a lot more
in the future, whilst Electric Six brought a massive
party atmosphere to the Academy for an just over
an hour and by the end it looked like everyone
left the venue with a massive smile on their face.
Swound 4/5
Electric Six 4/5
Review By Trigger
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