![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shermaramaGorilla are a three piece heavy-metal-in-the-Motorhead-sense stoner-esque good-time rock'n'roll band and I'm prepared to bet that was only something like their second or third gig together. The individual members have reams of experience between them, I'm sure but they’re not quite as tight as they could be. The drummer is competent, not flashy but determined and with a good groove. The bass player is jaw-droppingly good, with a Rickenbacker and bullet belt and a bucket of fuzz and a mean selection of runs and riffs and slides and a feel for rhythm delightfully expressed, both in terms of playing and the way she bends and dances about. The frontman/guitarist knows how to look impressive on a stage, flings himself wildly around, pulls fabulous rock poses and gets away with it, and though the lyrics are rock cliches he sings them like he means them. He's plainly putting as much effort as he can into the guitar playing, and it's only a shame that his best is not really up to much. Given space to solo he looks down and sets about the fretboard, hoping after all these years that this time, this one magical time, his true aspect as a guitar hero will reveal itself. When the path falters five seconds later he goes back to jumping around because no-one expects you to be playing anything too complex at the same time. Given space to solo, the bass player looks like she could keep it up all day, but happily they’re aware as a band that there’s only so much of that you can do. Long on overblown rock excess, fun and bounciness; short on guitar talent, anything of any consequence to say and, not withstanding that last, contemporary appeal, they’ll never be big, but you can’t help but feel affection for them. Bless ‘em.
Firebird I won’t waste much time with. I regret that we had to waste time with them at the gig. Keen contenders for the title of worst band I’ve ever seen at a major venue, (as long as you discount the solitary bloke with guitar who forced Mountain out of half a set at the Greasy Truckers Party, anyway) they had poor songs and a totally static approach. I’d guess they’re a vanity band for the singer/guitarist, and he does nothing to deserve it. No individual’s playing was bad, but the whole was unimaginative, leaden, a non-entity. That’s enough about them.
Fu Manchu have undergone an image change in recent times. They’ve cut their hair and got off the skateboards and instead of being one the cardinal points of the stoner music scene, are aiming for something of a college-boy image. They’ve ditched the fuzz and made everything more pop. In some ways this has worked for them, I’m sure they wouldn’t have had such a big crowd without recent MTV2 coverage, but you have to wonder if they enjoy it as much. They do a workmanlike job, play new tunes and old ones and the odd obscurity. The crowd call for Godzilla, a BOC cover and possibly their best known song, and though they acknowledge the calls and do it in the encore, I’m sure they’d rather be getting recognition for the new songs instead. These are bouncier and faster and get the crowd moshing, but perhaps simpler and with less substance to them. They play very effectively, with the new drummer clearly having a whale of a time and large amounts of the crowd enjoying it, but still there’s not quite the spark there could be. I speculate that they feel a little betrayed by the way that pandering to MTV2 audiences has actually got them somewhere. I suspect they feel they dislike or at least mistrust the crowd before them. It must be hard place for such a long-experienced but scene-limited band to be in… I’m glad to have seen them, entertaining enough, but there’s a little something missing.
Firebird I won’t waste much time with. I regret that we had to waste time with them at the gig. Keen contenders for the title of worst band I’ve ever seen at a major venue, (as long as you discount the solitary bloke with guitar who forced Mountain out of half a set at the Greasy Truckers Party, anyway) they had poor songs and a totally static approach. I’d guess they’re a vanity band for the singer/guitarist, and he does nothing to deserve it. No individual’s playing was bad, but the whole was unimaginative, leaden, a non-entity. That’s enough about them.
Fu Manchu have undergone an image change in recent times. They’ve cut their hair and got off the skateboards and instead of being one the cardinal points of the stoner music scene, are aiming for something of a college-boy image. They’ve ditched the fuzz and made everything more pop. In some ways this has worked for them, I’m sure they wouldn’t have had such a big crowd without recent MTV2 coverage, but you have to wonder if they enjoy it as much. They do a workmanlike job, play new tunes and old ones and the odd obscurity. The crowd call for Godzilla, a BOC cover and possibly their best known song, and though they acknowledge the calls and do it in the encore, I’m sure they’d rather be getting recognition for the new songs instead. These are bouncier and faster and get the crowd moshing, but perhaps simpler and with less substance to them. They play very effectively, with the new drummer clearly having a whale of a time and large amounts of the crowd enjoying it, but still there’s not quite the spark there could be. I speculate that they feel a little betrayed by the way that pandering to MTV2 audiences has actually got them somewhere. I suspect they feel they dislike or at least mistrust the crowd before them. It must be hard place for such a long-experienced but scene-limited band to be in… I’m glad to have seen them, entertaining enough, but there’s a little something missing.