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see all the photos from this concert here
Antiworld
Sleeping Children
The Screaming Banshee Aircrew
The Verge, London
Wednesday May 26 2004
~review and photos by Uncle
Nemesis
Ah, Wednesday - the most un-rock ‘n’ roll
day of the week. But this particular Wednesday has been wrenched in the
direction of rockin’ craziness, because Antiworld are in town, taking a
swing through London before heading out to an appearance at the Wave Gotik
Treffen in Leipzig. Joining them, two support acts from France and
the UK. All three bands are making their debut in London.
It’s early in the evening, and The Verge
is slow to fill. Punters trickle in while behind the decks, Cavey Nick
of the Dead And Buried club keeps the noises rolling. Glancing around with
a jaundiced eye (which I keep in my pocket for just these occasions) I
note that the venue’s lighting rig now sports a handsome total of three
lights - hey, don’t knock it, that’s a 50% improvement on state of the
rig last time I was here. Unfortunately, as if to make up for this generous
technical largesse, it sounds like 50% of the venue’s sound system has
been disconnected. At any rate, Cavey Nick’s DJ selections sound thin and
mid-rangey as they blare through the PA. Hmmm. That doesn’t exactly
bode well for the quality of live sound we’ll get tonight, but let’s bring
on the first of tonight’s bands and see how we make out.
And our first band is...The Screaming Banshee
Aircrew, stars of the ‘oop north’ scene. Indeed, I believe this
is as far south as the band have ever ventured, and they’ve still only
reached Kentish Town. I dare say the ‘Crew are hoping that their first
London show will be a wild, hedonistic triumph right from the word go.
Well, it doesn’t quite work out like that, unfortunately, although not
for any want of effort on the part of the band. They’re stymied by
sound problems: the monitor mix, it seems, is barely there, while out front
their backing track is so low it’s hardly audible to anyone. So we get
a rather distracted performance, frontman Mister Ed making all his trademark
moves while wearing a frustrated frown, while the rest of the band try
their best to put on a good show even though the overall sound is all guitar
and vocal and not much else. Half way through the set the guitarist takes
it upon himself to tweak the on-stage equipment, and all of a sudden the
backing track booms forth, loud and...well, I wouldn’t exactly say ‘clear’;
this is The Verge’s PA we’re talking about here, after all. But there’s
a distinct improvement in the quality of the sound which makes me wonder
why the band didn’t ensure the mystery tweak was done before the start
of their set. Come now, chaps, that’s what soundchecks are for! Thus encouraged,
the Aircrew hit their stride and the performance gets a whole lot more
lively; much more like the rollicking, confident, band I saw in Leeds a
while back. A victory, then, snatched from the very jaws of a fuck-up.
I know nothing about Sleeping Children
beyond the fact that they’re French. And yet, paradoxically enough,
they turn out to be a very British goth band, in a way. There are three
humans and a drum machine on stage, kicking up a very 90s-style gothic
rock racket, not a million miles away from the kind of stuff that soundtracked
the UK scene about ten years ago. The vocalist sings in a bizarre style
of his own which seems to turn the lyrics of every song into an all-purpose
‘Ah-wow-ah-wow-ah-wow’ sound. I was curious to find out whether he’d deliver
his lyrics in English or French, but I fear I cannot tell you. His heavily
stylised vocal technique swamps the words to such an extent that he might
as well be singing in Klingon
for all the sense it makes to me. Meanwhile, to his left, a guitarist who
looks uncannily like Matt North from All Living Fear (and even has Matt’s
habit of singing along to himself while doing a series step-forward-step-back
moves as he plays) churns out the riffs, while on the opposite side a bassist
who seems to have dressed up as Scary Lady Sarah for the gig handles the
bottom end. It’s all a bit surreal: a gothic rock episode of Stars In Their
Eyes.
The audience receives Sleeping Children
politely, without ever going quite as far as showing any particular enthusiasm
- it’s as if everyone’s waiting for the band to do something really special,
to pull that killer song out of the hat. Alas, it never quite happens.
The band have that good ol’ gothic sound down to a fine art, but I don’t
hear any songs which particularly stick in my brain. There’s a distinct
lack of hooks and choruses and memorable melody lines. The baffling, vowel-heavy
vocals don’t exactly help, of course. In truth, Sleeping Children don’t
really provide much to latch on to. They’re not *bad*, you understand -
but they never quite rise above the ‘not bad’ level, and that just isn’t
enough.
The set is short. Abruptly, the band stop,
and are gone. There’s a moment of bemused silence. Nobody’s quite sure
if the sudden halt is caused by a technical problem, or if it really is
the end. Nope, they’ve finished. A smattering of applause breaks out -
but only a smattering; a fair reaction to a competent but not particularly
inspiring set. I suppose the lesson here is that just because a band hails
from overseas, and thus has a certain exotic cachet about them, it doesn’t
necessarily mean they’ll be anything special on the night. We have bands
in the UK which can do everything Sleeping Children do, and do it better
to boot. After all, if you’re after a no-nonsense gothic rock band with
a guitarist who looks like Matt North from All Living Fear - why not book
All Living Fear?
The band everyone really wants to see tonight,
of course, is Antiworld, who, in tonight’s piece of shameless hype (every
gig must have one) are billed as ‘Wave Gotik Treffen headliners’. Now,
if I were a pedant, I could point out at this juncture that the Wave Gotik
Treffen doesn’t actually have a ‘headliner’ in any conventional sense,
and even if it did, Antiworld, whose slot at the festival is actually one
down from the top at just one of more than eight different venues, wouldn’t
be it. However, I wouldn’t dream of being so picky, so I shall say no such
thing. Tonight, at any rate, their top spot is not in doubt. The band wander
casually on stage, picking up their instruments, tweaking this, adjusting
that. They’re an exotic looking bunch: part undertakers, part gangsters.
It’s as if we’re watching ‘The Sopranos - The Spooky Years’. The mysterious
DJ Psyche introduces the band, and they dive straight in to their amiable,
bouncy, pop-punk set. And yes, Antiworld *are* pop-punk. This band isn’t
in the business of tackling the big issues, or even pushing any particular
musical boundaries. They’re all about having fun to a soundtrack of pell-mell 80s-style
punky riffs. They’re a permanent Hallowe’en party, and if you take them
on that level, they’re jolly good fun. The visual focal point, of course,
is Grandma Fiendish, on vocals - a spooky storyteller, looming out at the
audience with tales from the crypt, cautionary fables of all the bad things
that’ll happen to us if we’re not good children. She throws out fizzy sweets
and novelties into the crowd, and if Antiworld’s music, if truth be told,
doesn’t have much more substance to it than those one-crunch-and-they’re-gone
candies, nobody’s complaining tonight. This band is unashamed spooky-trashy
fun; they don’t pretend to be anything else - and they get exactly the
right kind of good-humoured reaction from the crowd. Antiworld might not
take you on any kind of astonishing musical journey, but on a Wednesday
night in Kentish Town they’re probably the most fun you can have with your
clothes on.
see all the photos from this concert here
Antiworld: http://www.anotherstateofmind.net/antiworld%20home.htm
Sleeping Children: http://www.sleepingchildren.com
The Screaming Banshee Aircrew: http://www.bansheeaircrew.co.uk
DJ Psyche, promoter of the gig: http://www.viciouslondon.com/psyche
Reviewed by Uncle Nemesis: http://www.nemesis.to
07/20/04 |