Vinyl Collide + Mia Riddle + Owsley Sunshine + The Blueroute |
|
|
|
The Mezz Bar, Lincoln 04 August 2007
Photos & Review by Pete
Five bands for... nuffin'. Free. Zilch. Zip. It's RaW at the Mezz bar on a Saturday night! And a good and diverse turnout, too for what was to be an interesting concoction of musical flavours.
Owsley Sunshine are some sort of gloriously socialist urban hippy
collective thingie. All ages and
The RaW team work well and are determined the night goes brilliantly
but sometimes it just won't happen. New York band Mia Riddle had asked
for sound levels to be set low and for whatever reason it all fell
apart right from the start for them. Ironic as Kevin, one of the sound
guys had tipped this band to me before kick off, telling me he really
rated them. They were definitely heroic struggling through some
horrendous feedback issues which might have caused at least a strop -
if not some act of destruction or other -
The momentum of the night reached it's boiling point when ex pats Vinyl
Collide opened up and ripped into their first song to a big crowd of
latecomers. The band's trip down from Leeds must do their egos a
Some pics at www.shine.clara.co.uk webspace.
Pete
|
|
Band Websites: |
|
After an
acoustic warm up act from Notts/Newcastle Back Street Angel were local
lads The Blueroute. Both as people and melodically they have come a
long way in the last couple of years. The cute long hair has been
shorn which seems to have been enough to lose them most if not all of
their usual mid teen fanbase. It's a risky strategy to move away from
that soft and friendly image but one that has to be applauded as it
suggests real intent which was made clear from the off, scything
through any pappery to reveal a new staggeringly robust song style,
full of depth and interest. This was Quality, mate, with a capital Q!
This band can comfortably command any stage around these parts - no
easy feat with the level of competition - and their set throughout was
rich and well worked. When it came time to wrap it up even promoter
SimplyChris came on and had to comment on the progress they've made.
There was a real sense of pride and lead singer Adam later joked he'd
seen a tear in Chris's eye... 
attitudes, reminiscent of L4TN, a
hugely popular local latin influenced band from a decade or two ago.
Vibrant music from the heart - no from the soul! The emphasis is
massively on having a fuckin' good time and nobody gets in the way. Ok,
and nobody gets hurt either. Both those things are important. The
crowd they love them, it shines. Real love, not infatuation. They
light up the Mezz bar and all is deeply good with the world. Half way
through I want to go hug Chris and thank him for putting on a fabulous
night. I resist but the urge was there. 
from some less refined act.
But these five New Yorkers stuck with it and managed to show off some
lush harmonies and adept instrument innovation in the good bits. They
maybe hadn't anticipated the Lincoln crowd behaviour to encroach so
much either - both in terms of background noise and physically. Cos
there were some adoring guys right at the stage front a bit ga-ga over
the two shiny, smiley Yank girls. Phew - at least they didn't have to
endure the mystery/misery of local crowd chant "fuckin' hell, fuckin'
hell, fuckin' hell". They survived Lincoln. Just.
helluva lot of good cos they are always assured of a big turnout
whenever or wherever they play around here. AND it was lead singer
Stuart's birthday - everyone had sung him 'Happy Birthday' - and their
hardcore fans obviously do wish him and the band well. The guys
look good (great hair) but ain't so soft as to avoid thrashing around
while serving up some razor sharp riffs and heavyweight bass playing.
They ain't taking no shit from nobody and so even taking photos is high
risk with the flailing bodies spinning at speed as they tear into this
quirky and clever material. Reminscent of Iggy Pop being sucked into
the crowd at Glastonbury this summer, Stuart eventually crossed that
invisible line separating a band from an audience and he was hijacked.
Like a giant love octupus arms reached out and grappled him and hoisted
him into the air and spun him around - before chucking him back on
stage just in time for his next line. Incredible timing. It could
have been nasty as he was barefoot but hopefully there were no broken
toes and afterwards they could set off back to Leeds to consider how
Lincoln will always be their true home. This page was last updated Monday, 11 January 2010
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
Latest Additions |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||
  |
   
|
     |
  
|
  |
   |
|
|||||
© LincolnBands.co.uk 2004-2007