Saturday 30th June 2001, Bedford Esquires.
Unfortunately I arrived too late to see opening act Fimbria, but I was immediately struck by the small size of the audience. This was mainly due to most of the regulars going to a party, but the lack of any reaction to the bands from the crowd was still strange.
I have seen Pooka several times before, and they are still the same as always, playing dreary alternative rock with overt Placebo and Nirvana influences. The problem with bands like this is that even though there's nothing particularly disagreeable about their music, there's also nothing going for it. About the only distinguishing feature of the band was their eccentric geek rock image, and the fact that they are actually quite good on stage. Otherwise, they are one of these bands almost no-one usually moves to, seeing as they are interchangeable with hundreds of other second rate bands.
The same could never be said of the headliners, who are about as original as a band can be. Comprised of bored musicians from high profile bands, Sack Trick play a bizarre mixture of cartoon music, glam rock and even some occasional thrash. The quirky vocal delivery was spoken word with occasional sung parts, which slightly reminded me of Primus, with lyrics about camels and penguins taking over the world, the whole experience comeing across similarly to an Anti-product gig with great stage presence and audience interaction. Probably the one disappointing thing was the unadventurous crowd, which reacted with half hearted cheers and a bit of jumping, while no one actually seemed to want to mosh. And so, in the end, it was an average gig due to the total absence of any party atmosphere and a very low turnout. i am sure the band could enjoy the same cult status as Anti-Product in bedford if they got to play to the large regular crowd, but bad luck meant they were stuck with an emotionless audience.
Peter Burov