Review by Joe Chrichley except The Freaks Union - by Calvin Roffey. The Freaks Union, The Volunteers, Odd Man Out, The Kramer’s.

Saturday 22nd. May 2004, The Thirst Club, Bedford Esquires.

Amidst the squeals and whistles of a speaker system pushed to its limits, The Kramers took to the stage with confidence, and preceded to cruelly wrench half an hour of jarring, disjointed punk-rock out of their tortured instruments. They claim to sound like something between The Hives and The Dead Kennedy's, and somehow manage to blend scratchy, feverish guitars with the low-down rumble of a solid bass groove. With an impressive opening band like The Kramers, you are left thinking "what next?", although sometimes with their frontman, its all too clear. When he's not fucking about on the floor, doing his best Rotten impression, or shocking the audience with a death-defying walk across the dance floor, The Kramers frontman can just about hold a tune, but don’t ever tell him he's nothing special, you might find he swings first, talks later. Very Rock 'n' Roll.

After the solid punch of The Kramers, Odd Man Out sound a little weak. Theirsubtle use of dynamics and tight, complex rhythms do not make the impact theyshould on tonight’s predominantly punk audience, and somewhere at the back of theroom, the dreaded "e" word makes its debut of the evening. Still, the dance flooris filling up steadily, and there is some serious foot-tapping going on, itseems even the most hardened of punks cannot help but appreciate this band!Finishing with style, Odd Man Out start a thundering avalanche of noise withease, and we avoid death by inches.

Next up, St. Neots most repetitive (From Bury St. Edmunds) - editorThe Volunteers dragged Esquires throughhalf an hour of the same song played 10 times. Depite this, more people thanever seemed to enjoy bumping about at the front, giving their brain a bit of arest perhaps.... One young gentleman had the amusing idea to roll about on thestage a bit, which was nice... I would have stood on his face. From the samescene as Bedford favourites Impact, The Volunteers have a similarly macho,chest-beating kind-of attitude, and spend their allocated time hammering homethree-word mantras like their lives depend on it. Their songs are not exactlypushing back the boundaries, but all credit to them, they are loud, and angry,and pretty fucking fast as well. Nevertheless, The Volunteers know that if theywant to get anywhere, they will either have to write another song (shock!), orcall themselves a "blues" band, neither of which I think they are capable of.

Review by Joey for www.bedfordmetal.tk

The Freaks Union are one of my favourite U.k. bands at the moment, if not the world come to mention it. They take all the best elements of bands such as Five Knuckle, Fireapple Red and Capdown, mix it all up and create something that sounds fresh faced and angry. Tonight, they are on form. Starting high paced, they launch straight into songs off of their most recent album "the beginning of the end" and its 3 songs in before the band even stop for breathe. A change of guitar lead and some jokes about "sprutin" (a jump that involves clicking your heals to the side) and the band are off again, playing another 2 songs. The band have so much energy onstage, yet still manage to keep enough composure to play their high paced punk at a guzillion miles an hour. Jimbo's vocals are strong, with the rest of the band providing a strong back drop for the 5ft tall singer to tear the place up, including standing on the kick drum, leaning over the famous esquires bar, and standing on the monitors. they finish the set with a barrage of songs off their first album "ever glad you were dead" before leaving the stage. Ace.

Calvin Roffey (Dot)