Thirst Club Esquires Bedford. Thursday 02 September 2004.
ARCADE.
I don’t think this band have played many gigs and it may have been a bit of a risk putting them on to open the other two more established acts. They were not really heavy enough to be 100% my type of music, they were able to deliver though and even got better as they went on. I just didn’t think anything was being put into the vocals to begin with, and displayed no flare or vitality, although after a shaky start, their material did improve and the vocals started sounding more at home on a live set.
Their young bassist put in a competent effort and looked as if he wanted to burst in to more heavier stuff, whilst retaining quite a standard bit of bass work – perhaps a bit of slap bass would have livened the technique somewhat.
The main strength of Arcade and what made the performance for me was the clever way they seemed to take turns in demonstrating pieces of really good guitar work – sometimes one guitarist would let some cool riff shine through, then later, the singer guitarist would have some well played melodic riff shining through. – Good stuff!
They didn’t appear to have any showmanship to their performance and I kind of spent the gig hoping they would let fly to some vitality, but they just walked off the stage and it had all climaxed to an awkward ending.
Bass, drums, guitars – they can defiantly play their instruments well, so with improved material and some tight fine-tuning I’m sure they would quickly transcend to having more strengths than weaknesses.
A good helping of PORTION. was next, a band with a great deal of flare, pizzazz, presence and no slacking in putting on a good show, they have some strong material to work with which helps, and kind of know what type of songs work at a live gig, with songs like ‘Virgo’ having a particularly powerful edge.
The sound guys seemed to respect what the singer is able to achieve with vocals, working well in adding effects to make the vocals sound pretty amazing with echoes, resonance etc. making for a team effort between sound guy and vocalist, for a good polished result. Some of the time the singing was quite standard and other songs sounded more pistols-punk like with every contorted singing muscle being flexed whilst caging the mic. to his mouth as if not to let any of the excellent vocals escape.
Showing diversity they finished on a song with quite a rappy start which could so easily of failed and fallen flat in the wrong hands, but the end song – ‘Speedball’ (one of the newest songs) was a good way to end the set and was sung so fast that it looked as if the singer had surprised even himself!
From Canada THE DEERS. antlered (bad pun) they’re way next on to the stage. I asked one of them earlier what he thought of the venue and his response was quite positive and really liked the stage area.
There were six of them in all and they kind of looked the same, apart from the two ladies in the band – one of which played a keyboard and a flute, who I must confess I quite fancied, she played the flute quite well which added another dimension to their rare, avant-garde, varied and atmospheric sound. It certainly had a lot going on in the mix. A blues edge with keyboards adding a somewhat orchestral sound in places and nothing being overused.
The singer (looking a bit like Cat from Red Dwarf) had a great voice but had a tenuous grip with the reality of where he thought the mic. was actually standing and should have got closer to it, for added effect in some parts he even used a loud inhaler to sing through.
I thought they were a good band to see live, as you could see how they use all the different elements to build their unique sound, which you would probably miss if just hearing a studio recording, seeing how they achieve their sound and watching them do it, combined to make a worthwhile gig.
Review by Keith – www.bedfordmetal.tk