August 13, 2004
Much to our disappointment, Weeble were without their horn section for tonight, but once they got into it, they proceeded to make up for its absence with guitars that seemed twice as loud, and movement that seemed twice as exaggerated. They were determined to make this a good performance despite all the technical difficulties, and they listed quite a catalogue by the time it was over, including a broken guitar, and a bass drum that kept wandering across the stage. The bassist was the only one who was holding them steady, and helped them through the frequent times of desperation and improvisation. They put all their remaining energy and enthusiasm into the vocals, and this they do well. One spilt pint of Guinness belonging to the front man and two very sweaty vocalists gasping for air later, we were left clapping at the shear determination to pull this one back out of the crapper and give it a quick rub down before anyone noticed.
The vocalist of Bud surprised me with a voice I was sure I'd heard before, and then I realised, he sounded so much like the fella from At the Drive-In, although it took me half the set to figure that out. Their opening song had a Hundred Reasons feel to it, but it sounded a bit empty, and they needed to add something to fill an obviously gaping hole. In their second song, they did just that, bringing on board a trombonist to finally get some brass in the house. This song turned out to have much more creativity and flow to it, switching to a sound resembling Distorted Penguins. Now this was more like it! Fitting and well thought out bass, fused well with the fast, rolling guitar riffs and the drummer used his kit well, despite the unruly bass drum. Their performance could have done with tightening, although just this once we'll put it down to technical troubles. Just this once mind! One point that needs to be addressed would be the order of their set, playing the longer, chilled out songs at the end lost the audience a little, it needed a quick fire, ear breaker at the end to make us stand to attention and listen up. The songs they played that leaned towards ska were a good deal more pleasing to the ear than the punk-esque ones. It seemed like more time had gone into writing them to make them both notable and original.
Wagstaffe were the last act of the night, and a relaxed stroll through the park it was too. The confidence and comfort they have with each of their tracks, ensures a pretty flawless performance, and allows plenty of movement and energy to go into the show. They played a song which they claimed emphatically to be from their new CD, called '4th Of July' proved to be very bouncy and had a superb fast, bright solo coming from the guitarist who kept coming up with these little shows of established technique, unfortunately his backing vocals were nowhere near prominent enough. I'll admit to a few raised eyebrows when the frontman announced that the next track was a cover of 5ive's (yes, the boyband) 'Keep On Movin' (ermÂ…). It thankfully turned out to be a brilliantly adapted and punked up version of said song, that worked really well, and accurately demonstrated the general sound Wagstaffe have. By the end of the night the vocals were constantly red lining, but the sound desk was unmanned, and neither audience nor band cared at this point. Review ~ Steph
Written By Steph
