Bedford Alternative Music Present: Point Of Extinction, with Hulkenburg, Gevaudan, Ragged Tone and Chris Williams Acoustic.

Dannys Bar Lev 1 Esquires Bedford. Friday 27th February 2015.

Tonight Bedford Alternative Music held one of their occasional shows. A last minute cancellation by Chasing Immortality meant that the fantastic posters always beautifully crafted by B.A.M., had to be ripped up and re-done. It will be interesting to see if that band gets asked to play at a further B.A.M. gig. Four hard working enthusiastic bands were segmented by an acoustic player, Mr. CHRIS WILLIAMS ACOUSTIC. A smiling gentleman who admits that tonight he is musically treading on thin ice with his “Dogshit softcore”. His fragile strumming is at odds with what is loosely described as a “Viking night”. Chris wears a striking facial resemblance to a young Billie Jo Armstrong. Throughout the night Chris relies extensively on covers that many er towards Mr Sheeran or “The ginger that who’s always on the radio”. His version as well of Mad World is almost as downbeat as the depressing original cover of a once classic song. What I thought didn’t work was Chris performing while one of the bands were stripping down kit. Perhaps a rethink of this interesting idea is needed.

RAGGED TONE are a Cambridgeshire trio on this show are in their own words “A bit different from the rest”. They offer a “Positive difference”. Performing without a drummer, they are armed with fully plugged in acoustic guitars and contain some grungy undercurrents. Their guitar totting frontman adds to this with his appropriate drawl. Sixth Sense impresses, while Man I Used To Know is rather bluesy in favour. Free For All is a “Newish one” as their vocalist discards his guitar to give full attention to delivering the lyrics. All eyes are on their cool looking guitarist and laid back bassist who appears either super casual or just totally bored. Hopefully it’s the former. As the song reaches a climax, all three guitars are utilised in unison. They reach their peak with Trippin Out where they can fully rock out. Mezmorising set.

Ah! GEVAUDAN who I think are making their Esquires debut, although they are regular visitors to The Bear pub musical roster. This quartet from Hearts and Beds, offer primal doom, stoner strength and hair. Plenty of long hair, this is a band who reincarnate the spirit of early seventies Black Sabbath, but boot it violently in to the 21st century. Gevaudan play “Loud stuff”. They think that’s how you describe it! Disappointingly for them, the room lights are kept on, which somehow dilutes their full on stage persona. They did ask for a blackout which would have suited them, but not perhaps health and safety. At present, they are showcasing their current debut E.P. Message Of The Damned, which unfortunately is not available for sale tonight as drummer Dave forgot to bring the merch! I really liked the fact that during an extended instrumental bit, the singer sat down at the back beside the drummer, drinking beer and let them get on with it. He does this on a few occasions. As they reach their last song Gevaudan describe it as “ Quite long and quite groovy”, advising people to “Dance about a bit if you want”. Wow far out man, the vocalist said groovy and he was being serious and not ironic. For those curious, the strange band name is of French origin and not as B.A.M.’s Keith thought Scottish, although it did give the promoter a chance to regale us with a ‘see you Jimmy’ accent. Riveting and powerful stuff. Return soon please.

These are exciting times for HULKENBURG, who’s gig here tonight proceeds a couple of March shows in London. One in the capitol is seeing them support the highly rated Toy. In keeping with the retro feel tonight, Mikey and Terry are both wearing home crafted tie+dyed T-shirts, very colourful they are too. Added to that, the furious beards appear to have grown longer! The set list works to type and includes the current double A sided single Human Hashed Loins and Mathemagicians. Terry describes the latter’s idea as stemming from his “GCSE maths days” while Mikey violently thrashes his guitar in wild abandon, Terry looks like a giant bearded toddler appearing to have a massive tantrum behind the drums! Brad Bramish seems to start off in a seventies semi glam rock manner of which Bolan may have curated before the familiar detonating riff crunching sounds kick in and take full effect. It almost shakes the bar to its foundations. Glorious!

POINT OF EXTINCTION are a strange cocktail of many musical variations, if rather limited. Very rarely do they get me remotely excited. A four piece from MK, they “Have negotiated sixty seven roundabouts to get here tonight”. With a Sepultura influenced sound, their vocalist I feel would be far more suited fronting an Oi punk band, because that’s where he seems better at ease with. This is highlighted by the raucous Fuck'd Up World, which is about “Loosing people”, their long haired guitarist with a spectacular pointy guitar seems to be the only member having fun, as he appears to be basing his performance on early James Hetfield. On the whole P.O.E. rather executed some laughable nonsense and I skipped their last song to get some much needed fresh air, what was the point?

Special mention must be made of soundman Barnaby who did a quality job in extracting some excellent clarity of sound.

Chris Williams Acoustic Vid