Gigs

Gig Review: Khalo + We Are Fiction + Lavondyss + Ten Years Ago Today

[Venue: Met Lounge, Peterborough]
[Date: 26 September 2008]

A split-level club like this one usually tends to be too dingy for the high-brow and not tight enough for those wanting to mosh. The result is it attracts few punters but tonight things are looking good and the balance of gloom to span is about right. As Ten Years Ago Today (2/6) take the surprisingly deep stage (the front view foreshortens it greatly) to thrash out their intriguing brand of progressive rock the venue is approaching half-full and the excitement is palpable.

TYAT are bursting with energy, a hive of industry but they have that annoying habit that the inexperienced have of constantly leaving spaces to ask the sound levels to be adjusted. Yeah, the bass is drowning out the vocal, yeah, the monitor levels suck, but hey, there’s a paying audience to entertain. Deal with it. They do have a vocalist who can roar so hard you feel he may actually vomit his own throat-lining, and the guitar has that great dirty throb smeared through it. They finally lose the plot though when we have to endure an entire song with a high-pitched whine in the background, probably due to the fact the guitarist hasn’t plugged into his amp properly. Shabby but not entirely without merit.

Lavondyss (5/6) are riding a wave of their own making. Five talented young lads from Rugby with their heads screwed on right and their badge of commitment worn proudly on their chests. Pre-warned that their live shows can get a little out-of-hand, I was a little disppointed to see the crowd somewhat subdued but slowly the band turned them round with mesmerising levels of energy and bluster (all without aching pauses and without a pre-show soundcheck). Frontman Rob Vicars was giving it everything (including plenty of incoherent babble between songs). Like a jack-in-the-box he crouched to scream bloody murder into the mic, threatening to bust the damned thing, before leaping up and running across the stage to stand astride the monitor. All around him the guitars were being wrenched back and forth whilst the faces behind them beamed.

Tearing through the new mini-album in sequence we had the enthralling ‘Meanwhile… Back On Earth’ with its rich patterns of interweaving clean to scream vocals and drum/guitar breakdowns, then the mazy, melodics of ‘For Future Reference’ which one crowd member decided was so good he screamed each lyric directly into his mate’s ear (he’ll thank him for that in the morning). The fascinating guitar trade-off during ‘Were It So Easy’ was pure showmanship as was Vicars decision to start using the stage as a climbing frame. Cracking stuff and had they been headlining, there is no doubt that the crowd would have been well-oiled enough to give more than just the perfunctory gentle head-bobbing that they did.

There is no doubting that the local lads, We Are Fiction (6/6), steal the show. With the crowd seemingly somehow to have doubled they appeared to cheers dressed as a nun, a chicken, Captain America, Batman and Darth Vader.
“Are you boys hot?” asks the nun.
“I feel like a fucking dickhead”, retorts Darth.
It sounds like a cruel joke but with tonight’s event in aid of Macmillan Cancer Research it was all in a good cause. With the first deafening (and I do mean deafening) snare-shot the pit kicks into action and the Posh lads can do no wrong with their jovial banter and hulking rock-heavy screamo.

Lead vocalist Phil Barker is aptly named, it turns out, as he throws himself about the stage hounding the crowd and demanding more effort from them. There is a suspicion that he may be a little unhinged because he will do literally anything to bait the masses; including clambering over the speakers, surfing the crowd, dropping the mic into the pit for the fans to fight over, and then dragging out his nutsack for the ladies to oggle. Yes, quite.

Still, there’s no denying the band are in party mood and their destructive music has the desired effect. ‘You’ll Never Guess What’s Coming Next’ is pretty damned impressive played with a crushing tightness and displaying a dizzying hook. Time for a chant of “Shit in my gob” decides Barker and when that works he gets Lavondyss to join the band on stage for an end of tour moshpit of their own. Only the in-house fun police spoil the party when they step in to stop the crowdsurfing. Thankfully, they don’t have much effect.

How could Khalo (3/6) possibly top that? They have a damned good go, and the crowd obviously don’t want the party to end, but both the fans and the band don’t seem to have their hearts in it. This is solid post-hardcore fayre and the straight-edge dancing kicks off in earnest once the pit opens (though there’s plenty of intimidated folks in there who are getting facefulls of fist and elbow - pretty, it ain’t.) ‘Enchantment’ is a riot of double-kicks and death metal vocal, whilst the massive beatdown in ‘Hellbound’ is a spiralling descent into the netherworld - that eerie keyboard holding your hand all the way down. Frontman James Gardner hands the mic down to the masses and is instantly smothered in adoring bodies, whilst The Banner tee’d guitarist cracks out shred after shred, his strap so high it’s almost throttling him.

About a third of the crowd have had enough and the place starts to imperceptibly empty. The fact that the band keep asking Mr. Soundman for a bit of drums, a bit of vocal, a bit of whatever in their monitors is probably doing it. It just goes to show that sometimes the headliners don’t always get it their own way and the promoter doesn’t always set the right playing order. Still, it’s been a night to remember and We Are Fiction join Lavondyss on the list of bands to watch out for in 2009.

More Photos

For Fans Of: Architects, Devil Sold His Soul, Deaf Havana

Band Links:
Khalo

We Are Fiction

Lavondyss

Ten Years Ago Today

Bookmark to:

Previous & Next