I was talked into attending this, expecting it to be a ‘prog-fest‘ instead of the hard rock it turned out to be. To these ageing and jaded ears, most of the songs sounded very, very like each other and it was obvious that frontman Sel Balamir has clearly spent a considerable amount of time practicing and perfecting those poses ‘n’ grimaces during his guitar solos. The result sounded similar to what I imagine the Foos would sound like had they been raised in a totalitarian state that only allowed its subjects to listen to Black Sabbath recordings…. and nothing else.
Dressed in black shirts and black ties, they were quite probably thinking ‘Kraftwerk’ while I was off somewhere else thinking ‘Bouncers, on their Night Off’!
A strange audience, it was an over-14 show which explained the very early start as well as the ten o’clock curfew. There were many early twenties and some folk perhaps even older than myself.
I am never one to dress down for a gig. However, it seemed tonight I was very much in a minority, with many looking as if they had come straight from leek-tending classes on the allotment or, perhaps, even from examining their wheel arches from under the car.
At least some showed a spark of wit……….