09.06.08

It’s not for the cock, it’s for lording it up

Posted in G-Town, Gigs at 3:06 pm by Gavin Williams

Tubelord/Blakfish/Cuban Crimewave/My psychoanalysis @ The Bodega Social

Tubelord are a fiery ball of fury, having come, seemingly all of a sudden, out of Kingston (the one near London- let’s nip any confusion in the bud sharpish) creating jerky, unhinged- yet strangely wholesome- rock songs.

But first there’s the exciting and eclectic line up of bands on tonight’s bill to contend with before we go shooting our metaphorical load prematurely.

My Psychoanalysis are on first and flit effortlessly between dreamy, decorative pop to moving, tingling shoe gaze. It’s clear this Derby outfit are bubbling with ideas and imagination and, with a little more effort on realising their full potential, could really go far.

http://www.myspace.com/mypsych

Next on is Cuban Crimewave. Their duelling bass guitars, rattling drums and raucous vocals look good on paper but, in reality, they are overblown and clearly not as good as they like to think they are. Their brand of fuzzy rock ‘n’ roll is actually pretty dated and the fact that they don’t have any squiddily, self indulgent guitar solos that this genre would normally inflict only makes it marginally more acceptable.

http://www.myspace.com/cubancrimewave

Blakfish, the joint headliners of this tour, make their way onstage and instantly rip into a spiralling, disorientating cocktail of almost everything from metal to melodic indie. What’s almost the very first thing that becomes apparent about Blakfish is the vice-like tightness of this band. Whether suddenly going off in peculiar (yet heart racingly thrilling) tangents or starting a song by getting the crowd to shout “‘Ey up me duck!”, the band always seem to be perfectly in tune with each other. Blakfish are intense, hard and, in many ways, difficult to digest. However, stick with them and you will be rewarded.

http://www.myspace.com/blakfish

Finally, the evening’s main attraction are on. Tubelord come on and begin bashing out their powerful, pleasingly confusing and life affirming rock nuggets. “Night of the Pencils” is the perfect archetypal Tubelord song; Melodic guitars with lots of nice “Whoas” and “Ooahs”, kicking down your inhibitions and stripping away any preconceptions with some monstrous riffage before revealing the beautifully anthemic chorus. All this plus much more. In one song.

The trio rip through their set with great energy and velocity, leaving the audience simultaneously headbanging and smiling stupidly. Finishing with a triumphant “Feed Me A Box of Words”, half the band end up in the crowd as the song falls gracefully to a close- all clean guitars and a sprinkling of glockenspiel-and before we know it, the set is over. Tubelord combine many things and what makes them great, in particular, is a fusing of the melancholy with a feeling of great joy, not to mention gentle melodic moments with furious rock parts, to create something unique and, well, pretty excellent. As Johnny Foreigner said: This band is the future.

 http://www.myspace.com/tubelord

Nightt of the Pencils (Hew Stephens seshhhh)

I Am Azerrad (Hew)

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