As Silence Falls, Ioneyes, Vs Akari, Latitudes.

Bedford Esquires Lev 2 13th March 2007.

The first band on were LATITUDES. I have seen this lot before on a Thursday in the bar, so I wasn't overly worried that I'd missed the first 10 minutes. That's probably less than one song, although there is no singer. It all seems terribly clever, but just seems to be missing something. Without any vocals at all you get the impression of some nerd boys indulging in an afternoon of guitar wankery in their mum's garage. The crowd were just standing around nodding a bit as there wasn't much else you could do to it. Perhaps I'm missing the point, but a large screen behind them showing some cartoons would perhaps cheer things up a bit.

Now to digress slightly, I have a theory about some of the bands that play up here. I reckon Paul Craven has a big cupboard in Esquires full of teenage boys (not in a dodgy way - bear with me) and when he is short of a band he picks 4 or 5 out, shoves 'em on stage and tells them to scream a bit. Vs AKARIA are a very good example of such a band. Absolutely nothing to distinguish them apart from all the others, I probably see at least one band like this every week. They all start to blur into one after a while. The highlight of this for me was watching someone trying to balance a cup on a very drunk boys head (it fell off).

The next boys out from the cupboard were IONEYES. These also played downstairs a few weeks ago. They were slightly more interesting, but again I felt the vocals let it down. I don't feel that the screaming really went with the music that well and he actually sounded better when he was singing. For this to work they should forget the screaming, or the singer should join a different band. However they did give out free CDs, which is always popular with an audience.

The last band on were AS SILENCE FALLS. From Wales, the home to such musical geniuses as Tom Jones, Goldie Lookin' Chain and Manic Street Preachers (OK, I was lying about the Manics). Sadly this lot were from a cupboard too. Yet more screaming, but this time alternated with a bit of whining. It certainly didn't seem to impress the locals 'cos a load of 'em buggered off about halfway through, prompting a cry of "Where are you going?" from the stage. This crowd thinning meant we could now all see the bass player's ridiculous flared shorts/ill fitting trousers. When silence eventually did fall, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Safe as fuck they ain't. You fucking knows it.