...aaand; we're back. After a lengthier than usual journey, thanks to the current road traffic problems (thanks in part to the rail problems, thanks to the floods!) we nevertheless made it back once again, for Seafood number 10! Hit the Garage at 8.15 after a 3 hour journey, and walked into some seriously cacophonous yet clumsy and half-formed noise. This, gentle listener, is Kaito, "good mates" of Seafood, yet a 2-girl, 2-boy young, enthusiastic but unpractised collective, redeemed for me only by an excellently energetic guitarist who looked a little like El Nino's Glenn Hicks, and playing guitar like a chainsaw.
Bumped, inevitably, into Seafood's Kevin and also Fiver's vocalist David in the surprisingly large crowd before Fiver's set. This time they were "on it" from the start, playing the same set as in Oxford last Saturday yet hitting the "commitment" button full-on straight away. Their Grandaddy-meets-Wheat sound of dusty and quirky pseudo psychedelic country, and evocative and sweeping Americana, was mighty fine, pardner! Again, third number "Builder" really got the set going, with its sweeps and swoops and tempo changes really holding the interest. As did vocalist David, who threw jagged shapes and sawed on his guitar like an outback woodsman. A fine young band with a great deal of potential!
By now the place was starting to get uncomfortably full, rendering a trip from our front-stage-right slot to the merch stand by the bar, to snatch some Fiver badges, remarkably slow. Managed another chat with David Fiver on the way back, this time about New York's CMJ Festival, which David informed me Fiver had played on the first night of the "Subway" World Series between the New York Yankees and New York Mets. From their rooftop vantage point following the Yankees win, they watched the whole of the New York Greater Metropolitan area go mental; fireworks, lights, the lot. Crazy town!
And so to Seafood. Tenth time overall, seventh time this year. but surprisingly the first time in London, apart from the bookshop! And, kids, the London crowd goes wild for da 'Food. Entering at 10 through a wall of dry ice, they kicked into allegedly un-named new number "Wasters", and immediately a surprisingly large moshpit encompassed our position. "Guntrip" and "Porchlight" followed, angry, petulant bursts of amphetamine-fast jagged rock both, and the reaction level rises from enthusiastic to frenzied! A couple of slow numbers bring light and shade, David advising us that, ""Kerrang!" are here tonight, so we're going to get heavier soon!" And they do, with a haphazard but ace "Psychic Rainy Nights", and finally, as a closer to their "live" activity for a "brilliant year," according to David, they cut loose with "Folk Song Crisis", their impressively haired guitar tech joining them in the yawing maelstrom that is this song. The hookline, "I hope the wretched town will fall" never sounded so venomous or vitriolic, and the mid-song white noise-fest, accompanied by migraine-inducing strobes and flashing light, complimented it visually to stunning effect. No band currently operating channels such fire and fury to such devastatingly effective greatness. Another great Seafood show but hey, you know that by now, right?
Quick chats afterwards with a euphoric Kev and calmer David, before we hit the road for a quicker journey home, David's final words remaining with me; "we tried to play it like a normal band tonight, but we're not..." I dunno about that David, "live;, you're about the best the UK has to offer right now!
No comments:
Post a Comment