Rock Sound Riot Tour 2011 - Cardiff University - 11th December 2011 (Live Review)
Tuesday, 03 January 2012
Written by Owen Sheppard
It’s the penultimate night of Every Time I Die’s Rock Sound Magazine endorsed tour and as is the custom with any big brand sponsored tour, the line-up is outrageously impressive. Solidarity and camaraderie within the hard core punk scene is usually a common place but going and sticking Every Time I Die, Trash Talk, Defeater and Spycatcher, all bands with a good relationship as it is, all on one bill really does take the biscuit.
The venue in question is an almost perfect punk show setting. Cardiff University’s The Great Hall 2, is essentially a 1000 capacity rectangle divided from within the larger Great Hall venue with great black curtains. It’s a cheap way to achieve great acoustics, with a dark and cavernous but intimate atmosphere that comes provided with all the lighting of a much bigger venue.
Spycatcher kick things off at about half 7 to a crowd of only a few dozen with their gritty, British styled pop punk but more punters appear as the set goes on. It’s probable that many have caught sight of their base player Stuart Gili-Ross who is taking time out from his alter-band, punk revitalisers Gallows. Anyone who doesn’t own the band’s album but has checked them out on You Tube will certainly have heard the fantastically catchy “Remember Where You Were When Michael Jackson Died” and it’s this massively underrated single that provides the climax to their half an hour contribution to tonight’s proceedings.
Another nice touch to the night that highlights the sense of community of the genre was the sight of Trash Talk’s Lee Spielman manning the merch counter and happily chatting away to fans. Later I then see members of Spycatcher and Defeater taking salesman duties on the counter. It feels like no job is beneath this hard working, modest bunch of guys and it’s even more of a surprise, as I walk back to the stage to see members of pop rockers Kids In Glass Houses apparently just casually catching a show of one of some of their favourite bands from amongst the crowd.
Next up was Boston’s Defeater and it was immediately obvious from their opening reception that these lads have claimed an ever growing presence in the ears of Britain’s hardcore scene after suitable media hype. Defeater are pretty bloody heavy and lean slightly further towards the metal-core end of the scale. With lyrics bleak and riffs punishing, they seem set on unleashing the agro, so much so that one of their most popular tracks, an acoustic number “I don’t mind” is left off the list. A shame to miss it but to anyone who had been unfamiliar with them before tonight, the perception of a band playing on top form has definitely been left.
At about 8.45 California’s Trash Talk took to the stage. The crowd had nearly reached full capacity and it’s no wonder for in the last 2 years, this four piece have been lauded and applauded by magazines like NME as much as say The Big Cheese for ripping punk rock a new one with shows as ape shit as any have ever witnessed. After watching videos of the awe inspiring ferocity of shows like their 2011 Download Festival set and their out of this world stage invasion incident at Reading 2010, to say I was excited was an understatement and these guys did not disappoint. New tracks such as “Slander” and “Blind Evolution” from their blistering 8 minute EP “Awake” were showcased alongside tried and tested belters like “lepers to feed the Lepers” and “Sacramento is dead”. And as always, with plenty of tricks up their sleeves, both guitarists take to climbing the lighting rig and amps to deliver the most pummelling of riffs while front man Lee Spielman stage dives incessantly. I was pretty bloody glad to have caught this band at a show this year.
Next of course, as Derek Archambault from Defeater had put it earlier, was: “Every Time I Die… the reason we’re all here” and within an instant, even to those who had bought tickets out of curiosity to check these boys out, the overwhelming superiority of this band had come clear. Keith Buckley’s voice came across surprisingly loud and clear through those gargantuan southern riffs and as cliché as it is to say, they sound a tight as they do on record. The sound seems mixed to perfection and the energy from the crowd that has been whipped up around us is staggering. Your typical hardcore fan, for anyone who doesn’t know, is surprisingly short haired, in their mid- twenties and built! Not what you would expect to see at a gig from the likes of say, Bring Me The Horizon and for this reason, the spectacle before me is actually intimidating as fists, arms and legs fly in all directions. This is the kind of gig where a front man can get away with making demands like “I want to bodies… on top of other bodies… on top of other bodies” and it becoming reality as fans and band members completely lose their shit with one another.
Highlights come in the form of “Wanderlust” and “The Marvelous Slut” while the grooves of “The New Black” sound as hypnotizing as they do damaging to one’s hearing. “She’s My Rushmore” wins my prize for most brutal yet infectious tempo changes. Tonight’s set was not a night of showcasing to death the new material. On the contrary the set is a perfect balance of the band’s time line of tunes and it’s great to see some of the more mature member of the audience going just as nuts as kids who look maybe eight or nine years younger. Its pure brotherhood from those in attendance, including for the smattering of females in attendance, but after all, isn’t that what hard core is meant to be all about?
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At about 8.45 California’s Trash Talk took to the stage. The crowd had nearly reached full capacity and it’s no wonder for in the last 2 years, this four piece have been lauded and applauded by magazines like NME as much as say The Big Cheese for ripping punk rock a new one with shows as ape shit as any have ever witnessed. After watching videos of the awe inspiring ferocity of shows like their 2011 Download Festival set and their out of this world stage invasion incident at Reading 2010, to say I was excited was an understatement and these guys did not disappoint. New tracks such as “Slander” and “Blind Evolution” from their blistering 8 minute EP “Awake” were showcased alongside tried and tested belters like “lepers to feed the Lepers” and “Sacramento is dead”. And as always, with plenty of tricks up their sleeves, both guitarists take to climbing the lighting rig and amps to deliver the most pummelling of riffs while front man Lee Spielman stage dives incessantly. I was pretty bloody glad to have caught this band at a show this year.
