Category: Music

w/ Stone Gods
London Astoria
27/11/08

Talk about ‘overnight‘! Earlier this year Australian pub-rockers, Airbourne played and intimate gig at the Borderline Club to only a handful to lucky bastards. After touring with Motorhead and slots at the Wacken Open Air and Hellfest festivals, Airbounre have sky rocketed into the world of main stream rock. Tonight they take London and claim it as their own.

But before Airbourne rocked the Astoria it was time for Blighty’s own, Stone Gods. Personally, I thought they were large bag of toss. Boasting previous members of the Darkness I didn’t expect much. However, the packed Astoria crowd loved these guys. The Stone Gods did show some promise but not enough to put a smile on my face. But what do I know?

Playing their biggest London gig to date, Airbourne finally land at the Astoria for the first show of their two night stint. Kicking off with ‘Stand Up For Rock & Roll‘ the hair begins to whirlwind, bodies begin to fly and beer begins to spill. The band are on fine form tonight delving into their endless supplies of adrenaline to bound around on stage like mad men yet still having enough composure to pull off tracks ‘Hellfire‘ and ‘Diamond In The Rough‘ without a hitch.

The smut stained ‘Girls In Black‘ is fantastic to see live. It had every single red blooded male in the venue singing along and every girl, wearing black, crowd surfing. There is no time to take a breather at an Airbourne show unless it’s to swig a gob full of warm flat lager or grab the nearest chick and get off with her. Known for his onstage set climbing, soloing and copious drinking, front man Joel O’Keeffe doesn’t disappoint tonight. Mid song, he leaps off the stage and runs through the crowd getting pats on the back and doused in beer all the way the back bar at the Astoria. Whilst STILL soloing, Mr.O’Keefe then proceeds to jump over the bar and start throwing beers out at the audience before leaping over the bar again and finally making his way through the heaving crowd in attendance back to the stage before kicking back into the astonishing ‘Runnin’ Wild‘.

Airbourne have an effect on you. They remind you of that time you listened to your first AC/DC record or that feeling you got the first time you heard Judas Priest. They embody that true rock n roll spirit. Finishing tonight with ‘Black Jack’, the band leaves a huge grin on the face of every sweat drenched rocker in attendance.

In the past year or so Airbourne have gone from being just four blokes from Australia who sound a little like AC/DC to a band that is now a well oiled machine, churning out furious rock ‘n’ roll tracks about booze, girls and good times. I will guarantee you; you won’t see a band as energized, charismatic or who rock as hard as Airbourne. You will not get more ‘bang for your buck’ anywhere else. This, ladies and gentleman, is a fact.

Tom Lindsey

The Lexingon, London
12.12.08

Playing to an empty room is the character-building test that splits the wheat from the chaff in live performance. Those weak-willed or too self-conscious will crumble and fall by the wayside where those with enough attitude and self-belief will play just as well as they possibly can to compensate for lacking atmosphere and make it worthwhile for the few people who are there.

Friday night and an unexpectedly tiny crowd rattle around a room above a North London pub, looking between each other awkwardly and the stage, wondering if and when the room will fill out. It doesn’t. 11pm and Kasms finally take to the stage, greeted by a crowd consisting of the support acts, a huddle of their friends cheering supportively and a light scattering of bewildered looking punters.

Front-woman Rachel Mary Callaghan bounds onstage and lets out a shrill scream of blood-curdling proportions, her minute frame arching like a cat hissing in attack – a statement of intent. Kasms, it seems, have no intention of letting the absence of the crowd bother them.

With their influences obviously citing the dark and brooding sounds of 80’s gothic/post-punk acts as a reference, Kasms take the Siouxsie Sioux mold, paint it red and rip it to pieces. They’re more snarling and vicious, more abrasive and far more expressive and genuine than decades of forgettable acts attempting and failing to create such alluring darkness. As Rory Attwell (ex-Test Icicles and RAT:ATT:AGG) and Scott Walker do a tag-team relay between guitar and drums, bassist Gemma Fleet pouts and purrs into the microphone leaving the spotlight to the magnetic and tirelessly ferocious Rachel. She bends and flips and rolls around the stage effortlessly, flinging herself at the floor, writhing and wrapping herself in the microphone lead, all the while maintaining an innate air of control and grace.

Unleashing new never-played songs from the forthcoming album and peaking with the single ‘Taxidermy’ released earlier this year on Trouble Records (Crystal Castles, George Pringle) Kasms have got it all to come… and based on tonight’s performance, they’re not going to let anything phase them.

Trotty P.

Machine Head
Children Of Bodom

Hammersmith Apollo
02.12.08

When Children Of Bodom took English classes, they clearly stopped going after the lesson that taught them the word “motherfucker”. Littering their set came calls of “Do you want to hear some fucking metal motherfuckers” which proved quite entertaining in lieu of any great deal of stage presence. That said, the band did belt out some good tracks, the fan favourite Silent Night Bodom Night getting the biggest reaction of all and Bodom coped well with the difficult task of playing to a sea of faces who simply wanted Rob Flynn and Corey Taylor’s men on stage.

Machine fucking Head took to the stage after a solid five minutes of the expletive driven crowd baying for their appearance and tore the roof off with straight up metal. Imperium, with its military style drum beat, sent the pit into its first workout of the evening and a mixture of old and new kept the energy up throughout the set. Flynn took to drinking a sip from each drink before lobbing it into the crowd and when he looked over to the far side of the front of the venue, he implored the crowd there to start headbanging because “it’s not a fucking Good Charlotte show, man”. Bloody right too.

Then came the main event. A black curtain covered the stage and once lifted, delirium kicked in. Shawn Crahan’s percussion kit lofted high into the air, cameras on either side displaying a variety of angles of the crowd and stage on a widescreen T attached to the front of his set-up, DJ Sid Wilson hanging off the keg with one arm, fire shooting up from the back of the stage, it was as perfect a stage show as you could ever wish for. Slipknot were most definitely in the building.

Corey Taylor, a lot chattier than I expected [I was a Slipknot gig virgin], was a great frontman, demanding the crowd crank the volume up to outdo the noise level from the night before and after ripping through tracks such as Eyeless, Eeyore, Psychosocial, People = Shit and (sic), there was no way the packed Apollo could have been any louder. The highlight of the night was the legendary crowd-crouching. Standing on the balcony looking down it was a sight to behold as an ocean of fans crouched down low [save the solitary dickhead who got a pummelling a few seconds later] and, on Taylor’s say so, let carnage break loose as the maggots launched skywards for the meaty portion of the track.

Last night, the 18-legged raging machine proved that they were the most entertaining metal band around simply for their stage show alone and they show no signs of letting up. People might equal shit, but Iowa’s finest certainly don’t.

Abjekt.