Tonight I’m in the sweaty confines of "Guisborough’s Wannabe Venue" Bar 44.
I'm not all that up on the tunes that the dj's are playing, but it would appear to be a mix of screams and palm muting - always good. The DJs would by the way, do well do volumize cd's before playing them.
Thankfully Whalter take the stage, tonight they are without a rhythm guitarist due to their singer breaking a finger. However their commitment shows as they play on, although with a noticeably weaker sound. Whalter appear to have nailed the Pop Punk formula to a T, sometimes creating perfect pop and but at other times being too close to the beaten track as evident in the second song, which sounded oddly familiar. Whalter are lucky to have not just one talented singer but four, with the drummer occasionally adding screams and lead guitarist adding perfect harmonies. Unfortunately the bassist managed to sing into a speaker all night instead of the mic...although easily done.
The highlight of the night had to be when Whalter's bassist, eventually finding the mic, shouts out "THIS IS FOR WEAM, EVERYONE CLAP FOR WEAM." and was greeted by silence.
Whalter's 5th song shows how talented these guys are, the drummer and singer swap, and we are treated to both harder drumming and more screamo vocals, but less of the harmonic whalter I’d been beginning to enjoy earlier in the set. They return to their usual posts, and treat us to a song reminiscent of The Futureheads, with bassist and guitarist providing us with various vowels over poppy vocals. This song could easily have fallen into a pop ballad role if it wasn't for drummer Ben providing a driving beat on the kit. The song seems well rehearsed but they don't lose any of the fresh feel that makes the style what it is. To the close of the set they really get into it more, moving off the tiny stage and coming out to the audience, and for the first time in the set give a show, until then they hadn't managed to involve what was already a despondent audience in their set, and sadly it was too late for any real "MOSHING" to take place tonight.
Next up are a Scottish band, THE FALL OF BOSS KOALA, billed as being "HARMONIC HARDCORE, you won't even realise you are listening to music" they had high expectations to live up to. They didn't disappoint, with four of the five members moving out into the audience for the duration of their set they got people moving a lot more, and were a stark contrast to the previous band. They're music seems to be totally unique, indeed it is Hardcore, as demonstrated by the meaningless screams and trashing drums, but they also have a strong harmonic edge, akin to bands such as sigur ros, helping to create a bizarre, but very effective atmosphere.
Their bearded, shaggy haired guitarist seems to be the brains of the band, with Van Morrison hat, he had earlier managed to gaffa tape the door closed in the shitters, genius, although agreeably, totally irrelevant to the review.
The band manage to create some sublime harmonies, and have a fantastic multi layered sound, however the band seem only half complete, I couldn’t relate to a single word, or even hear what the fuck it was he was so passionately screaming about. I was not alone either, everyone I spoke to commented on the lack of real lyrics. Still...cracking tunes!
The whole night, was refreshing however, I had a good time, IN GUISBOROUGH, and with drink prices that only slightly take the piss it seemed worth it. I don’t know what the previous promoter John did to this place, but he’s turned it round and it was fantastic to see some real bands in Guisborough for a change, still, with just over 30 people in it’s clear that promoter WEAM can’t afford to rest on his predecessors laurels, some real promotion is needed to sort this place out for good.
R. Major
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