December 11, 2004 @ Met Lounge (Peterborough)
Starting tonight’s proceedings were Weeble, and they had a hard time convincing the audience. It was clear that most of them hadn’t quite experienced this much ska before, and not to many of them were taking it seriously, which is exactly what they should be thinking. After a few rolled eyes and confused glances at the beginning, by the end of Weeble’s first song we had a pit going, well how about that?!? Having won the crowd over in what must be some sort of record time, with trombone player Stef in full Charlie Chaplin form, they had a look of determination on each of their faces, they weren’t gonna let up. Frantic and possibly half improvised backing vocals worked really well, and moments of perfected harmonising cropped up every so often. The sound at the Met Bar well excellent, everything seemed balanced, and there was nothing individually overpowering, which allowed the full extent of Weeble’s music to come through, and that it did.
Up next were a band that didn’t seem to have enough songs to fill the time they were given. Yellow Snow decided to cover The Undertones – Teenage Kicks (twice, at the beginning and at the end of the set) possibly another Undertones song, but if it was we couldn’t identify it, and there was at least one NOFX song in there. Fortunately for them, they adapted these songs well to suit their modern punk style, and pulled them off pretty well. In the songs they claimed as their own, they used pauses and timing to their full advantage, changes in volume to bring emphasis, but they failed to give that hard-hitting bang just when you were expecting it. The lyrics were very unclear, and the vocals were a bit weak, they didn’t carry, or rise above the din of the drums and guitars. As I later found out, Yellow Snow were one of the youngest bands we’ve seen play, 1 of them being 14, and the other 3 were 15, so they can’t exactly be blamed for not having an awful lot of songs.
Fonzie came all the way from Portugal to tour the area, and they’ve come to Peterborough bringing their breed of feel-good three-chord punk. There was something about them that set them apart from the rest of the simple punksters, and that was the non-stop bouncing of them, the crowd and the songs, and the fact that they seemed so happy to be here doing it, with continuous smiles on all their faces. When i say feel-good punk i mean they stuck a grin on your face in a way that Blink 182 never could. There was real emphasis on drumming, with that crashing coming from the back of the stage, and the simple guitars and bass thrashing away at the front, it was all very loud. There was plenty of movement on stage, and their performance seemed completely natural, and relaxed, which is hard to do anyway, but Fonzie did it in a foreign country. Every so often there was a solo casually chucked in above the rest of the noise, just to reassure people that they knew more than the 3 chords. The tempo stayed a little samey despite each song being quite distinctive, up until the last few tracks, when the drumming varied to give a slower or even faster pace to the music. The lyrics were pretty cool, these guys weren’t singing about what you expect them to, it was much more random than that. It was quite refreshing, not to have to listen to the same old stuff. Fonzie had a much longer set than the other two bands, and they made the most of, never losing the crowd, and keeping up the effort and energy until the end.
Written By Steph
