Saturday 15th September 2001, Bedford Esquires.
When I saw Temperamental arrive on stage, I expected them to play some form of grunge, because of their image - typical modern rock fans, with jumpers and hoodies... I realised how wrong I was as soon as they started playing their caustic mixture of nu-metal with extreme metal. Contrasting brutal, epic riffs with melodies, their first few songs were very dominating and heavy. However, their set begun to get worse towards the end, when they decided to indulge in some clear singing and rapping, which was often out of tune and reduced the impact of their music. This was a promising gig from an unknown opening band (although they're apparently big in MK), but they still need a lot of development and better songwriting to progress.
I had seen The Jehu Explosion before, so I knew what to expect - unstructured, wilfully obscure Sonic Youth influenced songs that often sounded like the band were jamming on stage. This time round, the Explosion went for an even looser approach, with only occasional vocals and colliding atmospheric passages with heavy sections. Even though this seems to be an obvious formula for alienating the audience, The Jehu Explosion managed to get the crowd on their side by giving away strange toys, and a lot of surreal onstage banter, so that by their last song they even got a small moshpit. The band seemed to enjoy the gig far more as well, with far more onstage movement than usual and seemed totally relaxed. By throwing away the rock songwriting rulebook, they have managed to come up with something unique in the Bedford scene, a mixture of metal, grunge, atmospheric rock and passages of pure noise, which sometimes made them sound like an experimental noisecore band. A brilliant gig by a unique, and misunderstood band.
And now... The headliners... Well... There isn't much to say about a tribute band, is there? Teen Spirit are very good at what they do - looking and acting and performing just like Nirvana did. They got a moshpit. Everyone sang along. Basically, if you haven't seen the original Nirvana (who are vastly overrated anyway) you will just LOVE Teen Spirit. Just don't expect anything different from when you sit at home and listen to your Nirvana albums...
- - - - - - - - - -Peter Burov
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