Robyn Writes

Live: Bridge And Tunnel/Young Livers – Spayce Leamington Spa, 27/4/10

It’s not often that Leamington gets some excellent bands from across the pond (the last was North Lincoln all that long way back in October), but Bridge and Tunnel and Young Livers came on over as part of their UK tour, playing with three British bands. Five bands, five pounds. Not bad, considering. So I headed on over there, bad bus journeys aside, to see what was going on.

But first, allow me to digress. Live reviews are not my strong point. I go to a lot of shows, hence I do live reviews, but unless I write them up on the night, they’re generally not very good. This is one of those ‘not very good’ ones. I also feel kind of limited within the field that I do review – it’s always punk rock. Generally, most punk bands have a very similar performance – of course, there are nuances to every set, but on the whole, it’s a very energetic performance. The bands are usually pretty tight. Typically, it’s hard to dislike a punk set because even if the music isn’t very good, you can almost always give the band merit on their performance, because you know they’re most likely giving it 110% and it shows. Therefore, from here on out (this review excluded because at this point in time, I’ve almost finished it) I am going to try and really think about how to paint this picture to you. Guide’s honour. And so, without further ado…

First band of the night were Verses, a local band. I’ve got to admit, I wasn’t paying that much attention. The room was packed – presumably because there were bands playing that everyone had heard of – and I was straining to tiptoe to see above the crowd of six foot plus giants who surrounded the stage. And as a result, wasn’t as into it as I should have been. That aside, Verses were interesting. I liked to imagine that they were the bastard child of Pelican and Minus The Bear with some shouty shouty vocals in there for good measure. On the whole, what I truly listened to, sounded good. The performance was about as animated as you can get when you’re finger tapping into oblivion and you aren’t David Lee Roth, but on the whole, pretty good. Good way to kick off the night, even if they didn’t fit with the rest of the stuff being played.

Second up were The Amistad. I’ve seen these guys before (and possibly reviewed them before) so I sort of knew what to expect. Upon the release of their new album, they sounded better than ever. The set consisted of new songs and crowd favourites and was very good. I suppose in more detail, the new songs sound very much like the old ones, but that doesn’t matter because it’s all good. Seriously, check out that Myspace and give them a listen. I’m a sucker for gruff vocals, and let me tell you, they were gruff. I was not dissatisfied. Buy the album, they’re nice guys.

OK Pilot were back again and on fine form. I know fuck all about the British scene these days – I’m still stuck in the 80s or in Gainesville, Florida when it comes to my regular listening – but I do know that OK Pilot are pretty fucking awesome. They’ve got a real presence when playing live and the ferocity of their songs translates well to the stage. Everyone was really psyched to see them, myself included and came away happy. A few tracks off the EP I have were played, others were great… actually, do OK Pilot have a full length? I need to investigate this. And you do too. If you get a chance to go and see OK Pilot, please go and do so.

Young Livers were the penultimate band that night, having supported Bridge and Tunnel throughout their European tour. Despite my generally not terrible knowledge about American punk rock, I’d never heard of Young Livers. By the end of the set, I wish I’d heard of them sooner. They play a wonderful brand of really upfront and forceful punk rock. I’d say ‘with an edge’, but the very notion of punk rock is that it’s edgy, so instead, I’ll say that they were excessively interesting. All throughout their set, they had a strange dialogue between a number of different people threaded (pre-recorded, might I add). The closest I can get to describing it is that it sounded a little bit like the girl talking at the end of Affliction by AFI. I didn’t get a word that was being said, but it fitted perfectly with the music. Some great dual vocalist work going on and in general, an excellent set.

And finally, Bridge and Tunnel. The tour was in support of their new album and the new tracks they did play sounded pretty awesome. Admittedly, I haven’t heard much of their material (I have East/West on the way, but I’ve been relying off Myspace/Punknews streams for the time being), but it can be best described as intelligent shit. They’ve got the passion and energy of an 80s hardcore band straight out of DC, but it sounds far more melodic and has way better lyrics. It was a reasonably mellow set but with plenty of drive. Guitarist Rachel has some of the maddest tapping skills I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen Coheed and Cambria before. Absolutely mindblowing. Unfortunately, I had to leave before the end of the set, which was actually rather short, but that was the only disappointment of the evening. I can say with all honesty that every band was good, if not great, that night and that yes, we do have a good scene. As OK Pilot said, we have a good scene in Leamington and if we keep it going, people will keep playing. And with shows like this, I don’t think we’ll have much of a problem.

Live: Against Me! – O2 Academy Birmingham 2, 3/6/10

Originally by Ripper, posted on 10/6/10.

On 31st October 2007, something momentous happened. Normally, Halloween is a very big deal for me. Everyone else’s favourite holiday is Christmas and shit like that, but I’m a huge advocate of Halloween. However, I forsook my usual party/trick or treating/movie fest (whatever my friends were into at that point in time) and went to go see Against Me! in Birmingham. I’d seen some shows in my time, but I’d never seen anything like that. And I met fightclubsandwich for the first time, but that’s a story for another time. Therefore, I went into this show with very high expectations and was fully prepared for disappointment. I was also bringing along a very sickly friend – Sarah had caught some stomach bug but wasn’t prepared to miss the show – and I had a shit ton of sunburn from an afternoon of watching people get drunk in a field. At the very least, it was going to be an interesting night, and I was comforted in the knowledge that fightclubsandwich would be there with her boyfriend, so I knew it wouldn’t be a terrible night.

And then I momentarily forgot how fucking good Against Me! are.

But first, there was a support band. Canterbury are a band I saw play with my ex’s band a good number of years ago. To this day, I maintain that the sticker one of them gave me is one of the most adhesive things I’ve ever had in my life and it’s still stuck to my dresser. The first time I saw Canterbury, I wasn’t paying much attention, but I didn’t like them very much. It seemed ridiculously generic. I can say now though, that with my full attention, they’ve much improved. While not in line with the folk punk glory that is Against Me!, they played slightly more non-generic rock music that has the potential to be very catchy. It’s clear that there’s a bit of a Muse influence in there with some of the guitar, but old Muse, leading to a much more energetic set. The band themselves were really going for it, and as they are young and hopeful, they looked pretty adorable, like kids playing rock stars. They had a somewhat enthusiastic following, probably brothers, sisters and girlfriends, but there’s enough ‘la la la’s’ in there to form a good singalong. Surprisingly, for a support band, the sound quality was great and the band themselves sounded well rehearsed and to be honest, quite impressive. They might have looked like they were playing rock star, but I really hope that one day, that dream becomes fully fledged. They certainly seem like they work hard enough for that to be a reality.

Against Me! completely destroyed the venue though. While not packed out to full capacity, it felt as if the whole world was there. As lame as it sounds, moments like last night are the kind of moments I live for – watching something incredible, fists in air with a bunch of people who don’t even know your name, but they know what’s inside you, what makes your heart beat, because that’s what makes theirs beat too. It’s almost impossible to describe unless you’ve experienced it. And oh, I experienced it. I experienced it so much that my sunburn hurt. A lot. Because that’s what happens every time I go to see Against Me! – I jump around like a crazy person, throw myself around into other people doing the same and lose my voice because I’m screaming my throat out. I am currently suffering because of it, but it’s not a show unless I’m not.

And a show it was. Against Me! had their own light set put up, which I can only imagine was torture for the sake of aesthetics – Tom Gabel was looking excessively sweaty by the end of the set, Andrew Seward less so, but he has a beard to soak it up – but damn, did it look cool. In imitation of the new ‘White Crosses’ cover, there were dressing room bulbs stacked all around the set, lighting up with every ‘woah’, and it was pretty awesome. fightclubsandwich and I were commenting greatly on how classy it looked. For the songs from ‘White Crosses’, the band brought out a keyboardist, who had the most incredible curly moustache I’ve ever seen and a snazzy trilby. He may or may not be from The World/Inferno Friendship Society, but as I don’t have internet from where I’m writing this, I’m going to leave that research to you.(Just discovered that it’s Franz Nicolay from The Hold Steady – thanks to tayzowns from Last.FM for that one!) And as much as I complained previously that the amount of keyboard made ‘White Crosses’ seem more like a Journey album than an Against Me! album, I have to admit that it did bring an entirely new dimension to their sound and well… it was fun! People forget that because Against Me! are really politically minded in some respects that their music is pretty fun to sing along to, so why not?

The set itself was very evenly put together. Of course, it was heavily weighted towards material from ‘White Crosses’ as they played the title song of the album, new single ‘I Was A Teenage Anarchist’, ‘Suffocation’, ‘High Pressure Low’ and probably other things that I can’t remember. It was surprising to see how many people there knew the words, but then again, I guess it did get leaked, and Tom did put the lyrics up on his blog for everyone who downloaded it. What a gent. I found it amusing that he had the cheek to play a song from his solo EP, but if I had to place it, I’d say that ‘Amputations’ is a lot more of an Against Me! song than it is a Tom Gabel song, and it fitted right in with the set. I can honestly say though that only me and about five other people were singing along to it though. They pleased the crowd with a few songs from ‘Reinventing Axl Rose’ including ‘Baby, I’m An Anarchist’, which they very rarely play. There was a reasonable amount from each album, including most of the singles and ‘Sink.Florida.Sink’ which happens to be not only one of my favourite Against Me! songs, but one of my favourite songs ever. There was plenty to shout about in ‘Miami’, which sounded complete with the addition of the keyboard.

Against Me! have a great reputation as a live band to uphold, and they certainly did just that. While I was a little disappointed with the lack of Warren, due to his departure to pastures Floridian and gatory, George seemed to fit right in with the dynamic and everything sounded perfect. One of my favourite things about Against Me! is the way that James, Tom and Andrew harmonise and when this is accomplished live, that’s the mark of good musicians. Because regardless of what people think, punks can play music well in this day and age. Tom’s voice may be a bit more refined these days, but it’s not lacking any of the vitriol and passion it’s always had and as a unit, the band perform together perfectly. While they’re not really ones to mix things up a bit, they don’t need to, because seriously, every song is great as it is. There’s not a single song that I can say is bad by this band.

And it really says a lot when my only disappointment is that Tom was playing a Telecaster instead of a Rickenbacker.