On Saturday the 18th of February, I attended Australian band DEAD's Auckland show at the Basement, which was the first time I had been there. It was an all ages show, but surprisingly there weren't many people there. It literally is a basement. There's a small bar/sitting area connected to the basement area, which is where the bands play. The bar area is pretty cool looking, as there's some pretty decent looking art sprayed on to the walls, which gives you something to look at. However, it is small and there aren't many seats, so if heaps of people were there, it could be a bit cramped.
I wasn't the biggest fan of this venue. Being from Christchurch, I didn't rate it as very earthquake friendly; i.e. I wouldn't wanna be in there during one. To be blunt, the sound in this venue was crap. I felt sorry for the bands. I was left confused as to whether this was an actual venue for bands to play live, or something you would hire out, as I'm pretty sure all of the sound equipment belonged to members of the performing bands. There was no sound person either. The mixer belonged to God Bows To Math and there were only two microphones, which were used for vocals and they were a bit dodgy. It was really hard to hear the vocals for all of the bands and one of the mics fucked out for the lead vocalist of DEAD during their performance. It made me wish I was further into my training at MAINZ so I could have helped them out.
Anyway, three-piece god bows to ath were the first band to perform. I would probably categorize them as alternative hard punkish rock. They had a left handed drummer, which was pretty cool and the second night in a row in which I had seen one. He was quite talented too, really good at rudiments/fills. The vocals were hard to hear unfortunately, but the vocalist used a mix of clean and growling vocals. I thought god bows to math were good and I would like to see them live again, at a decent venue with decent sound, such as the King's Arms.
god bows to math links:
Official Site | Facebook | Bandcamp
You can download a few of their albums for free from their Bandcamp page. They're actually pretty good and have some amusing song titles such as How To Beat Your Dad At Chess and NZ Post.
Next up were two-piece Mean Girls. They were also an alternative hard punkish rock band, but a bit heavier than God Bows To Math. Their band consisted of a drummer and a bassist. The drummer was really good; he could play really fast and was pro at rudiments. He had quite a small kit (as in not very many toms and cymbals) and an interesting hi-hat, I know there's a particular name for it but I can't recall it right now. The bass player was also the vocalist, and like the previous band, it was really hard to hear the vocals. He played distorted bass in a way in which it sounded like both an electric guitar and a bass (well distorted bass tends to do that...). But I thought it was interesting and I had never seen a two-piece like that before.
Mean Girls links:
Facebook | Bandcamp
They have two songs available for free download on their Bandcamp page.
The third and final band to perform were DEAD. They are from Melbourne and also a two-piece; the same make up as Mean Girls. I would place DEAD in the sludge punk genre. The bass player, who is also the vocalist a la Mean Girls, played bass as though it was a guitar. It was distorted and produced a sound that sounded like an electric guitar/bass hybrid (like Mean Girls once again. However, I think DEAD had a more electric guitary sound). The drummer for this band was also talented and he helped out on backing vocals. The lead vocals were growl-esque (I guess you'd call them yelling, sorta Rise Against style but more raw). Like the previous bands, the sound wasn't the greatest. It was hard to hear the vocals and the mic that the lead vocalist was using stopped working. Luckily this was solved as the drummer's vocal mic was working fine, so they swapped.
DEAD links:
Official site | Facebook
You can download a live set they did for a radio show for free from their official site.
In conclusion, I don't think this venue did the bands justice. The sound was terrible and it was hard to hear the vocals. There wasn't a very good turn out of people either, which was surprising considering DEAD are an international band and the gig was advertised on Undertheradar. However, the bands persevered without complaining and performed as best they could, which I salute them for. If it were me, I would have been pretty annoyed. I hope to see all of these bands live again at a better venue. Check them out if you're into your hard punk rock.
PS. Sorry for taking ages to finally upload this!
No comments:
Post a Comment