Friday 15th of June 2001, Bedford Esquires.
Shiva, and all-girl band opened up with their old-school tinged sound. This was obviously one of their early gigs, but the frontgirl did make the effort at talking to the audience, although there wasn't much movement onstage. Their music reminded me of Deep Purple and Jimi Hendrix in places, as well as the music of female performers such as Suzi Quatro. It does need to be worked on, but the excellent vocals of their frontgirl are a step in the right direction.
As soon as Kiddthorn started playing I felt that something was wrong. Coming across like a Bon-Jovi style covers band with no stage presence, their set left me cold. They were good at their instruments, and the covers are competently played, but otherwise they are totally unoriginal and quite dull...
And now onto Dead Pheasant, a much reviled band on this website so far. This time round they were marginally better, and I realised that they do have one catchy song that I could remember from seeing them before... But otherwise, business as usual - frontman with good stage presence, but I wish he wouldn't sing, and a mostly static bassist, playing what sounds like bad Metallica mixed with aletrnative rock...
And now, onto Kat-Man-Du. This had been a well advertised and hotly anticipated gig, with a band featuring several popular members of the local scene and their frontman and songwriter Dom having fronted the hugely popular Stooge. However, everything that could have gone wrong wen wrong at this gig. The band were tight for a first gig, but suffered from a dire sound mix which rendered most of their compositions unrecognisable and came across as grungy alternative rock, which ahd not been the intention. Dom's vocals were also swamped by the Esquires P.A. while his nerves got the better of him onstage. However, this was only the band's first gig, and judging by their E.P. they should be better in the future, once they get used to playing together and get a better guitar sound.
Peter Burov