Bullets & Octane, The Knives @ 100 Club, Oxford Street, London
24th October 2007
For the third time in I’m back in the crowd for another show, satisfying my “slight” obsessive compulsion for live music! Another new venue for me, this time its the turn of the 100 Jazz Club, no jazz inside this evening though muuuhahaha. Its a very small venue with a capacity of about 350, many of whom have stayed at home this evening. A small crowd gathered in this basement deep under oxford street, the design is very rustic, or otherwise know as untouched since the 60’s. The red dated decor goes in line with their historic image and with the walls lined with frames full of jazz legends staring back the iconography of this place is key. The huge pillar in the crowd central is extremely annoying but in a venue this size that mattered less.
The opening band G.U. Medicine shall not eever be uttered again as they were such utter shite. It was truly pitiful, from what I could hear over the mess of guitar grunts, while the cringing formulaic riffs were a disgrace. These guys are probably the worst band I have ever bared witness to, EVER!
After partially regaining hearing The Knives did their best to soothe the endured pain with a good mix of hard rock attitude and angst’y vocals. Lead guitarist was a total classic rock cliche with every inch of his jean jacket covered in patches of every notable hard rock band of the past 20 years. His antics, Elvis sunglasses and solo faces were worth the price of admission alone, of course this would all have been in vain if he were crap. I glad to say he was quite handy with his battle scarred axe. His sound is akin to Brian May with some great melodic riffs and cool bluesy solo’s. This twinned with the alternating screams and punk-pop vocals proved that these guys have a future before them.
After the Knives, came the even more deadly, Bullets! Bullets & Octane‘s image is a strange one, from boy band perfect hair of lead guitarist, The half naked heavily tattooed body of the lead singer, surfer dude bassist they have all the southern Californian trademarks down to a tee. What else they have down to a fine art form is the ability to produce huge and heavy sleazy riffs with enough vigor to shake the foundations of oxford street! They played a well balanced set drawn from their 2 albums thus far as well as throwing in a ferocious cover of Billy Idols Rebel Yell. Highlights were Song For The Underdog, the sheer intensity of Save Me Sorrow and the closest thing they are going to get to a classic rock ballad Perfect Bitch.
The energy on stage was soon transmitted to the crowd and in this tiny venue as a small but crazy circle pit erupted. Problem with this was it was a bit slippy, as displayed by the two fat blokes on the bottom of a bundle pile after crashing on their ass’s after a grand total of 5 seconds, oh the comedy! Not to be deterred this gig was full of relentless energy and brash behavior. The show closed with a raging version of My Disease and as lead singer instructed
Dance MotherF**kers, like this is the last song you might ever hear!
most did exactly that & it was carnage! Bullets & Octane are a great live band not only heavy as hell itself, but have song top tunes to back it up!
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