Just as Survivor was getting interesting last night, I managed to haul myself off the couch and drag myself out into the night to catch these bands. The Winston is not exactly my venue of choice, being a claustrophobic, smoke infested bar in a hotel I would pay money not to have to sleep in, but sometimes you just have to suck it up, don’t you. Of course the bands did not start at the promised 8:30 so we had to endure the type of music generally played in this kind of establishment – heavy metal in the key of bleeding ears – and the quarts were flowing pretty freely by the time things got started. I was having a teetotaller evening, so basically I was just trying to staunch the flow of blood from my eardrums while still screaming over the music to be heard by my friends. Oh well.
I’ll be 100% honest and admit that I had hoped to miss the first band of the evening. But I was instructed that I may be surprised by them and enjoy them, so I gave it a fighting chance. Well. I was surprised in that The Medea Project was not as heavy as I expected them to be, but I can’t go as far as to say I enjoyed them. For starters, they looked incredibly bored on stage. Anyone who knows me will know that bored bands are my pet hate – if you are bored on stage why on earth do you think your audience will be excited to see you? Secondly, they were definitely not my taste in music, being of the mournful dirge-like metal genre. That being said, I am able to recognise when a band is good at what they do, even when what they do is not what I like. Frankly, these guys should not be performing in public. If you want to be in a band because you love playing your instrument or singing (I use that term loosely here), then by all means, have a hobby, but for the sake of the people who go out to watch bands….stay in the garage. The only redeeming factor this band had for me was the drumming…and that would purely be because the drummer from The AK Massive was being a drumming slut and helping out.
The AK Massive played their first ever gig at The Winston many years ago, and so decided to go back to their roots so to speak to showcase some of their new material. I thought this was a really lovely idea – play a gig primarily of new songs and ask the audience for their opinion so that if necessary the songs can be tweaked or dropped before recording the album. Kind of like market research with a novel twist. Although given the fact that one of the new songs (penned mere days before last night’s performance) was written in response to the singer being told not to swear so much and contains the word ‘motherfucker’ innumerable times, I have a sneaking suspicion they don’t really care too much what other people think! Nevertheless, the new material is brilliant and we had a great time jumping around on the dance floor. Gone is the angsty socio-political bent of their previous work, and in its place is an infectious blend of indie, grunge and rock that will make you want to get up and dance. Considering the fact that some of the songs had never been performed before, and considering that I have seen Mark (vocals) forget the words to songs he has been singing for the past 7 years, I thought the gig went off remarkably well. It is good to see this band filled with renewed vigour and enthusiasm for their music. There is no way this cannot translate into a crowd that has a really good time. This is a new album I am truly looking forward to.
Of course once the bands were finished, the soul destroying CD’s got chucked back on and we swiftly decided it was time to depart. The evening was saved by a stellar performance from The AKM boys, but I was left with one question….why do the bands you enjoy the least always have songs that are hideously long? Hmmm.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment