September 8, 2004
It was great to hear Bud had kicked it into high gear for this, the night offering the last chance of finalism (new word?). Without the usual effort you were able to pick out the different sections of their songs, and realise that they were pretty good actually, why didn’t they do this from the start!?! So now that I could tell what I was listening to the vocals were much clearer, much more easily understandable, and the frontmans voice suited their ska songs brilliantly well. The punk songs got quite heavy at some points, with prominent bass and drums, and “there was more variety in this set than a box of Quality Street” (I’m not responsible for that little gem, take that up with webmaster!). There was a beautiful lounge ska interlude in the middle of the set, and the trumpet player could be very pleased with himself after the show, he sounded great. This was a very impressive and opinion changing performance by Bud, if they’d have just played like that from the start I wouldn’t have had to have changed it now would I? grr
Displaying a full set of members tonight certainly warranted the loud loud loudness that was this anthem-esque, hard hitting ska-punk scramble that is Weeble. Enthusiastic and obviously having so much fun, it’s not hard to see or hear why they get the crowd into a tizzy and into a mass of upraised arms, bouncing heads and viciously skanking legs, and that was just Glynn. The horn section was incredibly energetic and playing with gusto, but they’ve still got far too much time to breathe for my liking. They’ve scuppered their chances of ever blaming it on the equipment again, seeing as they seem to have the same problem with the bass drum as they had at The Peggars, the drummer’s obviously had far too many Wheatabix. All 7 of them managed to use every inch of the stage and surrounding area, well except the drummer, but he was keeping the bass drum stationary. That last 30 minutes left you very sweaty, with a possessed look in you eyes and mumbling “fuckin’ yes, man” to yourself repeatedly, yup it really was that good!
Chillout time, and luckily for us lot and also rather helpfully, Kingsize Operator happen to have proved themselves to be damn good at inciting such a mood. The frontman uses his voice so well, and with the funked up slap-bass and the back porch blues guitar, you start feeling like your stood in some back street central Manhattan funk café, and people should be wearing flat caps and smoking fancy cigarettes. (Why weren’t they? That’s what I want to know.) After the first couple of songs, the vocalist put down his guitar, and this did wonders for their stage presence. He proceeded to use the room he could on the Junktion 7 stage, and fire outrageously catchy and clever lines at you in the process. A very professional and enjoyable performance by Kingsize, there’s some sort of head rocking simplicity about their sound that really does warm the ol’cockles.
Bringing us a well polished nugget of surly punk rock Hinterland showed themselves last, and were determined to yank the decision away from the other bands with a last chance blast. Bounding bass lines, complex drums that never seemed to stop and the vocalist putting as much groin into his singing as possible, showed that they were playing hard and playing with one thing in mind, to go through to the final with eyes on that top prize. Unfortunately all that playing hard etc etc meant that they didn’t throw themselves around the stage as much as we’re used to, so the show itself wasn’t that impressive, but that didn’t matter, because the music was on another plain. If you didn’t have your eyes shut, your head flying everywhere, and your arms bashing everything within a 5 yard radius, then you should have grabbed your dosh, you were obviously not quite drunk enough. But then sober or not Hinterland are a band that make you bash stuff, even if you end up regretting it afterwards.
So the decision of the line up for the final is upon us, and the two bands that are to go through-eth are Weeble and Hinterland. Ye olde judges deem it so. And whosoever is to argue shalt be beaten with a very large rhythm stick-eth To see more pictures from this gig click here Review ~ Steph Photos ~ Andy
Written By Steph
Photos ~ Andy
