Tokyo Dragons, Voodoo Six, Radio Friendly, Scratchplate.

Bedford Esquires Lev 2 Monday 16th April 2007.

Monday night gigs are very rare at Esquires and judging from the meagre turnout tonight, it seems that most of Bedford's gig-going faces are having a quiet night in recovering from the weekend's excessive activities! Not even the lure of Tokyo Dragons can budge them from the sofa!

Making their third appearance here, TOKYO DRAGONS are embarking on a short tour of smaller venues in preparation for the festivals and larger arenas they will be playing during the summer. These hairy 'riff-tastic' rockers are a mighty musical distillery of emotions, guaranteed to lift our spirits with their beer-soaked blues rock. The band say very little during their set preferring to let the music do the talking, but they do announce themselves thus - "It's true, we are here. We are the Tokyo Dragons"!
This is very much a rock connoisseurs evening, borne out by the amount of band musicians who are in the crowd tonight. Culling songs from their excellent 2006 debut album 'Give Me the Fear', this follicular foursome undaunted by the lack of 'mosh' action in the crowd, just poured out some great songs. Anyway, as the Tokyo Drasons would say 'What the hell'.

Main support came from last years visitors VOODOO SIX (this time without Lauren Harris). A full on, heavy acerbic rock sound notable for two songs in their set, the awesome power ballad 'Walking on Nails' and the punchy 'Feed my Soul'.

Also appearing are young Exeter four-piece RADIO FRIENDLY. A grunge influenced band with a semi-art rock sound with at times a deep melancholy exterior. I would be curious to know if the band name is derived from the Nirvana's In Utero album track 'Radio friendly unit shifter', but the lads showed good stage presence and their musical palette was broad, especially 'Ignorant society'.

Final mention must go to our first band this evening SCRATCHPLATE, who kindly stepped in at the last minute to replace Wolflaw who could not play due to vocalist Sean having severe sinus problems.