80’s Matchbow B-Line Disaster, British Sea Power, Electric Soft Parade, The Mutts @ Concord2, Brighton
March 2005
Following on from last week were at it again this time at Concorde2 a very small intimate venue to see a whole range of acts playing for the Tsunami Relief effort. After we found the damn place, tucked away right on the seafront, (opposite the mysterious Green Apple!!) we watched the opening band, The Chris TT band. Pretty poor, 2 year old difficulty guitars and the lyrics failed to grip the crowd in the slightest.
The Mutts
Next up was The Mutts, First thing I realised is the lead guitarist could really play, very blues influenced sleazy riffs with some killer 80âs infulenced solos, If Eddie Van Halen was crossed with Jimmy Page, this would be te end product. The songs were well worked and very catchy and added with distinctive vocals made for the surprise package of the evening.
Electric Soft Parade
The first band Iâve pre-heard are up next Electric Soft Parade. They played a lot of new material taken from their new album âThe American Adventureâ, this proved to be their major pitfall. These tracks were comparatively weak compared to older material such as Empty at the end and Silent To The Dark which had the crowd singing and dancing along. The singer actually forgot the lyrics to one of their new songs and so he stopped, restarted again, got them wrong again, stopped, argued with the other singer whether he was right, then finally managed to finish the song…lol. Then a broken string forced the 80âs matchbox guitarist to lend him his guitar before he could finish the set. Comedic moments came from the British Sea Power keyboard/guitarist, in an attempt to rouse the crowd he burst onto stage made some rallying war cries and continued dancing half naked like a total idiot on stage.
British Sea Power
British Sea Power were the next to emerge onto the stage. These guys pulled out a really good set and played with emotion and a swift fluidity which gave each track a very polished feel. Many tracks were extended with “have we finished yet” outros which seemed to last longer than the track itself. But this added to the guys performance and they were musically superb.
80’s Matchbox B-Line Disaster
Now we come to the headliners 80s Matchbox BâLine Disasterâ. I was apprehensive about these guys, and I was right. If LOUD was an artform these guys would be up there as a mentally disturbed Andy Warhol. Huge thrashy blues guitars and a guitarist who looked as if cousin IT had dyed himself black and perched himself on his head. The singer was energetic and had a voice like a train station announcement guy, which works incredibly well. If you like thrash back to basic blues then this would be right up your street, not so much up mine however (probably because I was soo tired) but their performance was very good.
On reflection the night was really good but tiring and for me the biggest impact was made by little known âThe Mutts who were superb, Electric Soft Parade let themselves down somewhat, British Sea Power were excellent and 80âs Matchbox were pretty good. Back home for work in the morning 😦
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