Friday 9.May 2003, Samuel Whitbread School Shefford.
This Annual well-organised event would be of interest to people who like live music in Bedford, as most of the bands have been busily active on the live circuit for a while. – The school seems to produce the pick of the crop of bands that have made several appearances at the Bedford venues.
The event kicked off with THE SCREAMING GAUNTLETS OF AVALON - 'great name'
With a gothic/death image. I saw some of these at the Langford rockfest and wondered if they were in a band. I’m not sure how well they would go down at other venues but they had an original style in comparison to the other acts, with a kind of ‘M. Manson gothic theatricality, what I liked most about this band was the death growling vocals, making for a rare style to see in a local band.
The next band JESS MASON WILKES with strong vocals from the female lead singer who seemed to be in full charge, making me wonder if this was one of the teachers at first. They started and ended with a cover. I quite like the last song they did and was happy that the band done it justice, especially as it’s not an easy song to do.
The drumming was particularly good with a rave type break-beat to the drumming style in places. There’s some seriously good skill demonstrated from this band and a bit of fun thrown in also which included their guest legend – ‘Barns’ with his Vic Reeves club style singing.
ALFIE seem more of a fun band than anything too serious, with a few opera style vocals and the novelty horn playing to start proceedings this time. There’s also use of some Spanish or is it Mexican guitar playing in their repertoire. They do in fact have some reasonably good musicians in the band, who seem to be deciding whether to concentrate on their playing or to move around more for the live performance, which at times induced a bit of shoe throwing from the audience.
One of my favourite bands of the evening was INERTIA who have an ability to create a great atmospheric sound. They would be quite good to use as a film sound track and I wouldn’t mind hearing more of their stuff, although the crowd response seemed a bit subdued, the music made up for this, including a bit of tribal style drumming in some parts, the tunes are mainly ambient instrumentals and they are looking for a lead singer for the band, although a good Cure song rendition was given to us from their guest singer from Insomnia. Good luck to this band I hope they do well.
One of the bands that had the best crowd response and dance pit has to be THE WANS, despite technical difficulties and a while to get started, the wait was worth it when they kicked in. Their songs had the crowd going through out – whether it was the covers including No Women No Cry, with the superb Metallica section thrown in, or their own stuff including Your Mums A Dad, and Gravy, they seemed to get a lot of respect from the other bands – with a few shoes thrown in for good measure. This being a school gig, the temptation for their usual dressing up was too great and the band came on in various guises. They now have a new brass addition and it has to be said – she played quite well!!. The Wans are a hard working band with a few gigs lined up and was a pity they were not included on the C.D.
It’s now over to the other side of the room for another band with enough atmosphere in their sound to shatter a barometer! – The black clad INSOMNIA with their unique style and skilfully played tunes, some of which are on their C.D. They’ve come a long way in the last year, entering ‘and winning’ various battle of the bands competitions, touring, gigs and studio recordings, each band member is the best at what they do. The relatively new bassist has fitted in quite well and showed his stamina and ability recently by staying for the whole of the impressive improvisation set at Club 85.
They finished with a song that really got going towards the end. It was one of their faster songs with the band really going for it, especially with their front man’s swing out and pull in movements on the guitar. There’s no dressing up or gimmicks here – just damn right drive, skill, clever tunes and a great sound.
The floor space on KAMORA’s set seemed rather empty to begin with but it soon filled out and the crowd soon warmed to them, they seem to have stabilised as a band now with Dim back out front on guitar and their new drummer who played really well with some fast, heavy and technical pieces to his drumming style.
Amongst the striped socks and ‘underpaid’ T-shirts there are some quite good songs – some old, from the ‘Residence/U.K.’ days and others from their C.D. It’s good to see this band has survived and now seem sorted and not having other band members filling in for the drums.
The front man moves around well and confidently on stage. It was a good set and as usual, the songs come over much heavier when performed live.
MANBOOB are one of the great professional sounding bands, they have a really good lead singer and drummer – it was welcome to see him using the climbing frame behind him as part of the drum kit. – if you weren’t looking, the sound actually fitted in quite well (they will have to take that climbing frame round with them on their next tour!) but then again he is one of the best drummers in the live scene who appears in a few other projects which probably explains why Joe the guitarist had to demonstrate how one of their songs went before they could play.
For some reason, their bassist (G.T.) didn’t want to do ‘Love Song’ – I don’t know if he’s sick of it but it is quite a good tune, ‘lets be honest it’s a classic!’, however the singer and the audience won and the great little number was played. Although they dropped their ‘Incy Wincey Spider’, which I thought at least would have gone down well at a school gig.
The mighty BORDERLINE bought the show to a rousing end. They are a good band to get the crowd dancing. One of their guitarists never seems to move, which is odd for a high-energy band, although you cant fault his precision, in fact they played more in tune this time. One of their songs ‘A Minus’ is about being second best…. Which is ironic as they are my second favourite band (next to Insomnia). It’s reassuring to see that they are creating new material to stay fresh. I particularly liked their new song, it had a good structure as well as potential.
I always knew Borderline done a Jimmy Eats World cover but was never sure which one it was, - when it was introduced, I thought Ah so that’s it is it…. I always thought it was one of their own, especially as it fits in so well with their own great tunes, style, and skills – they’ve always had good material, and not a bad bit of drumming either and was an inspired choice to end the night on.
I would like to take this opertunity to the following people for the organisation of the event:- Luke Williams, Mr. Little, Goody, Joe Henly, and Rich of Alfie for the first two band names and credit info.
Review by Keith Pickering - Bedford Metal.