'NEW BANDS NIGHT' - Portion, supported by Cut In Quarters, The Sell Outs and Granddad's Van.
Friday 23rd January 2004, Bedford Esquires.

I had not seen any of the bands playing at esquires on this particular Friday and I didn't really have high expectations for the night. Proceedings were kicked off however, in extravagant style by GRANDDAD’S VAN. Playing a style not heard much round Esquires any more they rocked hard and play a selection of covers including a Jeff Buckley number, which pleased me greatly. A lot of their time on stage was spent with extensive 'progging out' and lengthy solos, making them a tad tedious to listen to, the lead singer/guitarist had a good voice and could have done with using it a lot more. Despite this, they earn top kudos points from me because at one point they swapped instruments but actually didn't, if you get what I mean. I guess you don't so I'll explain, the guitarist and bassists both put their instruments behind their backs and played on each others instruments by wrapping their arms around one another (this also gave them an excuse to give each other a friendly hug). As I had never even heard of them before, the high quality of musicianship and performance was a big surprise and put me in a pretty good mood, at least for the time being.

Next up were a girl-fronted band named 'THE SELL OUTS'. I was kind of hoping their name was ironic and they were going to be quite alternative. They weren't. Despite having an amazing drummer and bassist, the, and I hate to be sexist here, girls in the band, kind of sucked. The leader singer was painfully chirpy and bounced around on stage saying things between songs such as 'wow, they really love us!' , she was barely charming and did more to irritate than entertain. The guitarist was very static on stage and added little to the band. The songs were ok but mostly generic pop punk stuff with the occasional metal riff. They were definitely tight but the songs needed much more variety and some difference in dynamics other than the monotonous sound they hammered out. Perhaps they could have been really good, but they weren't, as a band they played very well but, that's not really enough.

CUT IN QUARTERS played a style that is popping up more and more over the Bedford scene at the moment. The mix rock, emo and metal into a sound not too dissimilar to bands like funeral for a friend, or a static lullaby. They played with exuberant confidence and their lead singer had a style reminiscent of mid nineties grunge singers. They sounded very powerful and a cover of the recent Incubus hit 'wish you were here' really got the crowd going and everyone singing along. Tight drum and bass playing laid a solid base for their songs which had some variety but still often fell into a formula, the strong vocals often became a relief for similarities in the song structure and style despite occasionally sounding nasal and forced. I expect I'm just nit picking and this performance which was a warm up to their battle of the bands heat on the 7th of February, was well done and enjoyable to behold. The crowd showed their positive support and they seemed to go down well.

Headliners PORTION began their set somewhat weakly and the crowd were reluctant to get into their slightly indie like sound. I believe they are signed and it is easy to see why, they certainly had an unthreatening sound which was easy to ignore at times. However, towards the end of their set the song quality improved immensely and they did become very enjoyable to watch. Their frontman was the main focus of the band providing strong quick vocal lines. A s a band they were good, but not great, and the backing music did seem uneventful in many of the songs. With a few improvements they would probably do a lot better and move out of the 'average' bracket they very comfortably fall into.

All in all a very interesting night. It will be entertaining to see how cut in quarters fare against young scene vets (well sort of) sprokit in the rock heat of the planet 2 battle of the bands. I'll definitely check out grandad's van if they play again and I recommend it to anyone who likes a bit of zeppelin or cream and wants to see some kids doing it their own way. .

Review by Dom www.bedfordmetal.tk