Saturday 26th January 2002, Bedford Esquires.
And now, bedfordmetalfuckers(wow, new word!) my profound review of the final. With the quality of the bands on display, this was bound to be a good gig, and it fucking was, even though it was marred by a muted audience response. As it was one of the most highly anticipated gigs of recent months, the advance tickets sold out, and the tickets on the door ran out soon after. There were about 10 people in the crowd I recognised, which was surprising - I thought a lot of the older regulars would want to check out this important night.
As soon as New Road arrived onstage, they inspired a really enthusiastic reaction from the crowd, which they deserved as they delivered a spectacular set. Their songs are catchy, the band are tight, and the frontman shows a confidence which is amazing for such a new band. The only problem I find with this band is the fact that the vocalist's singing style is just a touch too harsh for poppy ska-punk, but otherwise he seemed to be in tune most of the time and had a charismatic stage presence. I think this band has a good chance of becoming one of the best new bands in Bedford.
Insomnia have been on the scene for a couple of years now, and they were probably the tightest and most professional sounding band of the night. Clad in their now trademark black, they sounded heavier than usual and put more passion into their performance than I had seen in many of their previous gigs. Their atmoshperic goth metal psychedelic tinged sound was lost on some of the audience, as the reaction was not all that enthusiastic, although they did get a lot pof applause at the end. Their appealing sound has a chance of crossing over into the mainstream and maybe getting them signed, and they were the band with perhaps the best prospects that played in the final.
I don't think tonights crowd was really in the right mood for the sometimes confusing music of The Jehu Explosion and even the gifts they threw out did not get them much support. Their usual charisma was there as usual, with Tom (Jesus!) telling us another of his fascinating true stories. He din't do the Jehu dance though, the bastard. The band rocked hard of course, but were less passionate than on nights where they got a good audience response going. They sound different from more or less all other bands in Bedford, with their noisy atmosperic parts and off-kilter riffs, but tonight's crowd just didn't get it unfortunately.
The crowd was definitely wrong for Alterica, who weren't even in the running for the competition as they had unfortunately missed the heats and the metal final. Today the band played one of the tightest sets I've heard from them, with new guitarust Ali adding some very good solos and sounding like a full part of the band, unlike his first appearance with them. He did not have the same stage presence as he had with Dead Pheasant (RIP), but he has only played two gigs with Alterica so far. By the middle of their set the band didn't seem to be very enthusiastic, but that's unusrpising considering the lack of crowd support. If the band is given a more metal album to play they will definitely go down well, with their brutal mix of classic Metallica and Arise/Chaos AD Sepultura stylings. They played a very good and tight gig to the wrong audience.
New Road and Insomnia were the joint winners of the competition, and both bands deserved their position. The bands were better than those at the last Battle Of The Bands final, but the audience was far worse. The strength of the four bands which appeared tonight is testament to the strength of the local scene nowadays, and with cool new bands appearing all the time, I expect great things in the future.
"Russian" Pete Burov