Gig Review

Photo Of Stone Gods © Copyright TriggerAirbourne
Stone Gods
Bristol, Academy
2nd November 2008
               

Airbourne                      Stone Gods
      
So tonight was my first time back in the Academy at Bristol since I did the stint of three gigs in one week at the venue back in April, so was I glad to be back at the venue? Well yes because my new favourite rock and roll band the Stone Gods were there supporting Airbourne.

The first support band on tonight was a band called Sound Of Fury but due to the queue getting into the carpark tonight and then into the venue we actualy missed these guys play. When we got into the venue it was about 10 minutes untill the Stone Gods were on stage so we went and made our way to the main downstairs room to get our place to watch the Stone Gods.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into the venue was there was a big age range in the venue tonight which ranged from people between the age of 20 - 50, which meant there were huge queue's for the bars and equally long queue's for the toilet as the majority of tonights strong 1500 crowd was drinking tonight. There weren't that many teenagers in the venue tonight, the ones that were in the venue were situated right at the front of the venue against the barrier and I am pretty sure you would be able to count them all on your fingers and toes without a problem. The thing with tonights bands is that both Stone Gods and Airbourne have that cross over feel where people who read Kerrang will love the bands and also people that read Classic Rock also love the bands and that's partly why tonights show attracted such a huge age range of people.

Photo Of Stone Gods © Copyright TriggerStone Gods took to the stage at 8.40pm and had pretty much a 40 minute set and what a set it was; the band stormed through many of the songs from their recently released debut album 'Silver Spoons And Broken Bones' with frontman Richie Edwards plugging the album midset telling the Bristol crowd that all the songs being played tonight are from their debut album which you can buy at the back of the venue at the merch stall for only £7 and I am pretty sure that a lot of the people in the venue tonight took up that offer as the Stone Gods played a huge set.

The Stone Gods are a really tight sounding band that have the sound and feel that they have been together for many years when really the band have only been together for the best part of 2 years now, they have a sound that would suit the massive stadiums and they also have the stage pressence to match that. Richie Hawkins is a bit of a guitar genious strumming away with such passion, new drummer Robin Goodridge has had his fair share of success playing drums in the past for the Stereophonics which could of only helped give him the confidence he shows tonight, bassest Toby Macfarlaine plays some big bouncy bass lines throughout tonights set and front man Richie Edwards is a man totally in his element, he spends the whole set knocking out classic rock tunes one after another whilst also making time for some jokes in between songs.

All the singles that the Stone Gods have released so far were played tonight, 'Don't Drink The Water' went down really well due to the fact that the song is as fast as anything and merges punk rock into the bands classic rock sound, you can clearly tell Richie Edwards is giving it all with his vocals shouting down the mic in such a clear fast way and during this song is where Toby Macfarlaine gets to show off his skills with his bouncy bass line which Richie Edwards shouts to the crowd encouraging them to jump to.

Photo Of Stone Gods © Copyright TriggerThe biggest hightlight of the set was when they played their second single release 'Knight Of The Living Dead', Richie introduced the song by shouting into the crowd "Who wants to hear something fucking heavy then" and then they slammed off straight into the song, the song is one of my favourite songs from the album just for the fact that it sounds a lot different than the rest of the album, Richies vocals are a lot different, they sound quite raw here and really remind me of Skin of Skunk Anansie, now I don't know if that is a good or a bad thing that a mans vocals remind me of a girl but I will leave that up to you to decide. Anyway the song went down really well and the jamming session towards the end of the song was truly awesome.

After a big jamming session the band left the stage whilst thanking the crowd and throwing drum sticks and guitar picks to the lucky people in the crowd that managed to catch them. Stone Gods played like they should of been headlining tonight and I thought that there would be no way Airbourne would be able to beat the performance that Stone Gods put on tonight.

Photo Of Airbourne © Copyright TriggerAirbourne took to the stage at 9.50pm and wow i couldn't be more wrong, these guys surely know how to rock, as soon as the lights went off and the introduction music started the band ran on stage with frontman Joel O'Keefe clutching a case of 24 cans of Stella he started off with cracking open a couple of cans and then throwing them into the crowd, next the band went off into a 2 minute long jamming session which was met with the most insane lighting show I have ever seen at the Academy in Bristol, I have allways been one to criticise the lighting at the Academy because all they ever shine is red lights that looks pretty awful and like the lighting show is done by a bunch of amateurs but tonight Airbourne had a crazy set of strobe lighting that was flashing constantly for the first 2 minutes as they were jamming, a lot of smoke filttered out of the smoke machine as well giving the band a really nice looking siluette effect, as soon as the jamming was over the lights came on pretty bright with big white lights lighting up the stage majorly, Airbourne got straight down to business and blasted right into their first song and the whole of Bristol Academy started bouncing about.

Now to be honest, before tonight I didn't know too much about Airbourne apart from the fact that I have heard their single 'Runnin Wild' and thought it wasen't too bad but after watching tonights performance I am a fully converted fan, they were like a younger version of AC/DC on speed, they were totally nuts and had more energy than most bands today. Rhythm guitarist David Roads and bassest Justin Street kept taking to each others side of the stage to perform some dual movements with their instruments and head banging whilst playing their bits of the songs and front man Joel O'Keefe spent the night full of energy bouncing around the stage whilst knocking back cans of Stella and shots of Jack Daniels before the show.

Photo Of Airbourne © Copyright TriggerI seriously think Airbourne should be sponsored by Stella Artois, just think if he takes a case of Stella on stage every show, he is drinking and giving a lot of Stella to himself and the crowd and at the same time he is promoting their product to the thousands of fans that they play to every night, the only point about it is that the few kids that are in the audience tonight might think that the Stella is giving Joel the energy that he shows off tonight and might become hooked themselves.

The songs that went down the best tonight were 'Girls In Black' which was a really heavy sounding song which got pretty much everyone in the venue jumping about, I am pretty sure even the security were even tempted to show off their moves and the other song was 'Runnin Wild' which they played during the encore and yes they rocked hard during this.

I am pretty sure that everyone left the Academy tonight with a massive smile on their face feeling that they got well more than their moneys worth, as both the Stone Gods and Airbourne put on such a big show, seriously I thought the Stone Gods were going to be the best band of the night after seeing there support slot and then Airbourne came on and pretty much pissed all over them with their fast, hectic engergetic ways.

Stone Gods 4/5
Airbourne 5/5

Review By Trigger

 Airbourne


Joel O'Keeffe (Vocals, Lead Guitar)
Ryan O'Keeffe (Drums)
David Roads (Rhythm Guitar)
Justin Street (Bass Guitar)

 Stone Gods


Richie Edwards (lead vocals, rhythm guitar)
Dan Hawkins (lead guitar )
Toby MacFarlaine (bass)
Robin Goodridge (drums, percussion)

 Band Related Links
Stone Gods Myspace
Airbourne Myspace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?