 Well, when the bands turned up at the little civic
an saw the huge crowd only to find the crowds
there for Mcfly, i think we had the better show!
however there wasn't even 50 people in the little
civic surprising really for a fairly big name
for people in the know.
First up were Southern Cradle, what to say they
were very dreary, it was even the drummers last
show and even that failed to inspire them to perform
a better show, altho with the material they have
got, is very middle of the road and uninspiring
, at times even the guitarist on lead or rhythm,
looked like he didn't want to be there, jsut like
some of the crowd, when the front man wasnt singing
he had his back turned to the crowd for most of
the set, the only real signs of life was the bass
player moving about a fair bit.
it could only get better and thankfully it did
with the Guilty pleasure, with the punk sound
and looking the part albeit looking cleaner than
the punks from the past, playing loud and fast
for a 3 piece band its pretty impressive to see
such volume coming from them, with plenty of energy
getting around the stage, playing good punk riffs,
great bass and drumming working well to create
the songs live, altho theres nothing really memeorable
apart from a sudden break down in the 2nd song
when everything cuts out except the guitar, going
for a clean sound, its unexpected and got my attention,
some of the lyrics about being about soical commentary,
altho its pretty much by the numbers punk.
 the gig is on the up after the guilty pleasures,
comes failsafe, nothing quite prepared me for
the energy blast that was about to come, five
guys on stage looked like they might have to fight
for space on it, the band has a sound that mixs
bits of punk, hardcore, rock, reggae an more.theres
some catchyness to the tunes but for some reason
for all its energy an character it never seems
to peak with that killer song, or memorable chourus,
but it certainly keeps the gig on a whole on the
up, even some of the crowd is dancing/two stepping/slam
dancing/skanking.
Talking just befor the gig me and MC Lars share
a few words about the misfits, then its on with
the show, with his own brand of laptop rap rock,
trying saying that really fast over an over, projector
on stage and failsafe for his backing band, all
donning MC Lars tshirts, the headliner gets underway
to a crowd that still is really small, but he
takes time during the set to crack(bad) jokes
from a book, sing happy birthday to a member of
the crew and even knows some of the familiar faces
of fans, that he even knows the name  of, not bad,
playing tracks like guitar hero hero, and even
rocking out with the plastic guitar from the game,
mainly taking the piss as some of his songs do,
even updating an old poem, about the raven knocking
on a chamber door, with mr.raven, performing new
tracks from This Gigantic Robot Kills,including
the title track. also performing ahab, getting
the crowd involved in practically the entire set,
pointing the mic at the crowd to sing along, even
failsafe seem more alive altho not much moving
about due to alot of people on stage, and most
of the energy is left to MC Lars to use up, should
be playing in a bigger venue to a much larger
crowd, but it would lose some of its intimacy
in a larger venue, but a good gig after a poor
start.
Southern Cradle 2/5
Guilty Pleasure 3/5
Failsafe 3/5
MC Lars 4/5
Review By Robert Lawrence |
