Bruce Tality + Industry + DefNation + Last Promise + Root + Plaguesfire (08 winners) |
|
|
|
| Aurora Promotion's Big Bang Band Final @ Duke of Wellington
9th May 2009
Photos & Review by Pete |
|
|
|
|
The Duke was abuzz with excited bands and excited mates of bands. The belief of the bands and their
First of the five finalists - with the misfortune of the tough opening slot - was Bruce Tality; one man, one pair of punky tartan trousers, a flat cloth cap, one electric guitar - and burning off energy like a flame on top of an oil rig flaring into the sky. Despite the lightweight early crowd he played with vitality and confidence and soon warmed up the dozen or so pushed up front. Included was a respectful cover of ‘Ghost Town’ - but Bruce was deffo more a wildman Joe Strummer type than a cool Terry Hall of The Specials. Excellent start though, well done.
What was also immediately impressive was the fab, high wattage lighting rig (well done,
Next up were Industry a band from both Peterborough and Leeds (Lincoln is useful for meeting in the middle then). Fronted by a guy with spectacular red mascara but an unspectacular metal-lite vocal it was white and average all the way from some probably really decent guys. The guitar work could actually have been interesting but it was fairly lost, adrift way down in the mix for some reason. With a megaphone that got dramatically trashed after two minutes and a synth that failed (by itself) it was at times teetering on being a bit adolescent and probably not their best night ever. They mentioned they had CDs with them THREE TIMES (c’mon, twice has gotta be the absolute max even if you’re giving ‘em away/happily accepting donations) and they thanked people for this and that. Last song ‘Void’ did suddenly offer plenty to mosh to but either it was the sense of occasion or too few drinks had been drunk but turned out no-one could muster more than a keen wiggle. Nah.
Organisation was good and the changeovers were fast, keeping things almost on schedule. Fifteen
The lads were then replaced by men as Root took up position. Headbangers from Grantham with a smiling frontman with a yard of honey hair and rosy cheeks. The crowd thinned for them but - at last - some people up front got churning - simply in a Pavlovian response to some seriously staggering riffs. It was about time and yet the band were nothing too special, it was again fuckin’ far too average. Well most of it. Except - the opening bars
Tell the truth I was pretty bored by now and wondering if I should have gone to see that Yank band playing at the Biv on the other side of town. After all they’d come all this way. Hm. So, next. DefNation, all skeffy and fronted by a retarded, pervey looking guy you definitely would not trust to mind your pet tortoise for a weekend. No, it was not looking good. Then the opening deep throated satanic scowl, swiftly followed by a vocal pole-vault up through a few octaves to a human but still insistently menacing tirade. It was dirty and bad which was yeah, good. The young boy bitches in the band were half his size and clearly well buggered into servitude, playing at a level of ferocity that overshadowed the earlier bands by a whole lot of shadow. It was soon cranked up and rampant, rich with individuality yet always
After the storm had blown over it didn’t seem much point hanging around to hear they’d won but last year’s winners Plaguesfire were here to play a set - and it turned out worth stopping for. The lighting was seriously professional now, with an array of six overhead white spots directed downwards before turning to sweep like
The stage cleared and the result was announced - ooh, a tie - between Industry and DefNation.
|
|
|
More pics at www.shinephoto.plus.com website. |
|
Band Websites: |
Bruce Tality |
fans in that room was positively hormonal. Yeah, cos it was the Big Bang Band Final and there could be only one winner. Oh yeah. Bring it on. 
Rich the Lighting Guy - ‘Without Lights its Just Radio’) and also a clean, distortion free sound. Seems a whole shed-load of cash as well as sweat has been committed to this small and much loved live music venue. 
minutes then and Last Promise were in position and opened up with the cry ‘Let’s have some fun’ and ripping into some thrash pop. Suddenly the level of energy in the room really was at 99 out of a hundred - where it stayed all the way through their hard-driven set, only dipping to 98 for a few moments now and then to offer some slight variation. Though the crowd had swelled to around 80 there was still an unexpected problem in getting people dancing (apart from the two dutiful girlfriends giving it some) - which clearly also perplexed the band who eventually came right out and asked ‘Er, why aren’t you dancing?’ Dunno but their teen rock sound was a bit 70s, with oddly fast, elaborate guitar solos that just didn’t seem to fit somehow. Having caught a profile of 70s guitar legend Peter Green last night I wasn’t buying anything less today, soz. So, bad timing on my part there. 
of the very last song - OMG, for a few moments I was amazed and about to completely revise my (probably) overly harsh opinion in appreciation of some breathtakingly fresh, complex, deep guitar work that was clearly genuinely personal and inventive. Class. It made me gasp and get to my feet - before it was simply brushed aside as the band reverted to doing what they (and an ocean of others) do cos it’s a sound that everyone does. Later on it oddly collapsed into nu-beat which was kinda mad but. Well, just ‘but’. 
with a strong sense of shared purpose. Driven and irresistible, it was hard to argue with, especially getting up close and even when physically hurting from the grinning violence of the attack. Um, it was a bit much, in fact, they could easily cause widespread deafness in this nation. What’s more, I’d put money on them commanding respect (and compelling others to accept deafness) on any heavy stage in either this nation, in Europe, or anywhere in the whole wide world. This band is alive and fully formed in a way that their rivals tonight simply weren’t. So yeah, I was suddenly right glad I’d come along tonight after all, no reservations about that, all forgiven. I was like a stupid kid, revelling in the wild guitar performances. As for the bass player, his fingers should have been bloody stumps. The band were manic, relevant, full of sharp adrenaline restlessness, street proud, on the verge of recklessness. So good. 
searchlights as the heavy outfit appeared and rumbled into life. Then, before you know it, they have constructed a complete gothic cathedral of sound, full of textures, with subtle and melodic detailing emerging like strands within their thundering tonnage of noise. Yet there was an un-fussy, almost rap-like vocal which was unexpected in its restraint and maturity. Stripped to the waist Martin announced this was his last appearance with the band and officially he made way for his replacement - someone all dressed in chain mail and metal gauntlets ready for battle (and looking more than a bit like that medieval demon bloke from that Ghostbuster 2 film). What with all the malevolent face-paint, the unearthly dress-sense, the Hammer House of Horror fake blood it was a bit much for some. As the band finished a particularly black-hearted number they were met with stony silence for several moments which left even the band looking alarmed before the shock subsided a little and the raucous appreciation kicked in. One of the guitarists commented ‘We must have stunned them.’ They had. All was good though, except one or two pale and sensitive souls in the audience were now clearly mentally ill. No, seriously. This page was last updated Monday, 11 January 2010
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
Latest Additions |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||
  |
   
|
     |
 
|
  |
|
|
|||||
© LincolnBands.co.uk 2004-2007