Post-hardcore, screamo, scene, metalcore... call it what you will, there's a music style coming over from America that in its own quiet manner is claiming a substantial and obvious fanbase over here. At best, it combines the powerful spirit of American hardcore punk and combines it with the technical meedly-meedly flash of metal. At worst, it squeezes the messiah complex of hardcore and the egotism of metal into the aggression shared by both scenes.
I felt slightly out of place among the queue given that I've toned down my 14-year-old sartorial dabblings in emo/scene as I discovered goth, whereas many people were there in their hairsprayed fringes and skintight neon/black ensembles. After slightly too much time in the sun, we flooded into the Underworld, which I'll happily list as one of my top venues on accounts of being small, independent, and above all, nicely air conditioned. Slightly treacherous due to the lack of light, but that's all part of the charm of a reputable metalhead sweatbox, as you'll agree.
The first band up were Lower_Than_Atlantis, a young band that is very much part of this emerging scene, embracing its questionable incorporation of internet-inspired namings. They had some problems with their instrument tunings at first, but were acceptable enough once they got going, provoking a rather impressive circlepit with their chugging guitars and habit of jumping. Musically they were entertaining if unremarkable, but I'll readily say that their drummer was impressive, taking fast-paced hammering and adding a little zing and showmanship. If they find a way of breaking into an individual style, they could be worth keeping an ear out for.
Next were Confide, who are the epitome of scene - a five-piece ensemble of near-total androgyny and technicolour tattoos, most of whom shared vocal duties to some extent. The guitars were chugging like Megadeth on a caffeine rush in between rattling off your typical metal solos to the crowd, and the impassioned screaming about being different provoked more and increasingly violent circlepits. As a sidenote... I'm not a fan of metalcore moshing - it seems to involve a lot of showing off and attention-seeking and very little in the way of respect for others. If you fall on the floor here, it is entirely your own lookout, even if you were pushed over, and a lot of people will insult one another, which is something I haven't really encountered anywhere else. However, that said, there are nice people to be found here and there, and I'm not here to review the crowd. Confide, for all their posturing, noodly guitars and "we really mean it, man" left me unimpressed. I would say it was the use of an ironic basketball shirt, and say that they are in truth talented individuals whom I do not understand, only I have an issue with anyone who decides that their fast-forward drummer isn't quite fast enough and so their breakdown involves a lightspeed drum machine and bewildering techno happenings.
The first two bands left me with a punched ear, a feeling that I may be losing touch with "tha kids" at the ripe old age of 17, and worryingly, a sinking feeling that the gig may continue in this vein.
Eyes Set To Kill are one of the more established bands of "post-hardcore", and are in all honesty an intriguing band. Yes, they have the obligatory drummer than sounds like a cymbal being machine-gunned, as well as the caffeinated Megadeth guitars and a lot of Godzilla vocals. However, they've got a certain flair and individuality incorporated into their sound that may be a byproduct of having been around for a while, but it is enough to hold a crowd together without feeling the need to beat the snot out of one another, and the biggest selling point of Eyes Set To Kill is in fact the vocals. For all intents and purposes they have two vocalists: one does the screaming and the other does clean vocals and guitar. This leads to some interplay and overlap between the two, and this contrast actually works. They played their known songs, including 'Darling' and 'Liar In The Glass', which the crowd ate up, and for their last song the female guitarist/vocalist was left on her own to do a quieter solo number. This proved to be a rewarding moment of beauty, as she has a soulful voice that, while flawed, is able to carry a tune with a passion normally reserved for acoustically-inclined songer/songwriters. This versatility in being able to switch between snarling rage and soulful solo numbers along with some inventive musicianship and a genuinely good stage presence from the two frontpersons left me in a much more optimistic mood.
The headliners, I Am Ghost, occupy a darling space in my heart as they were one of my earliest "favourite bands" as it were. At the time they incorporated a violin, choral chants, duelling guitars, screaming, male and female vocals and generally played all the bells and whistles set to broodingly teenage and poetic lyrics about death and vampires, somewhere between Byron's little-known emo phase and Bach's lesser-known metalhead years. However this lineup rutured and they rearranged themselves as a much purer blood and thunder metallic band with a tendency to dress like vampires, leaving aforementioned bells and whistles behind for a sound that is like a classically-rooted cross between a more intellectual Aiden and a louder modern AFI, with rumbling ominous bass and angry, angry guitars. And many cymbals.
However, as much as they have indeed put out some gubbins in their time, they are able to form a huge rapport with their audience, putting on one hell of a show while making sure that people feel they are played to rather than at - the guitarists and bassists throwing shapes and grinning/glowering at the crowd like their lives depended on it while their frontman Steve Juliano thoroughly engaged with the front row to the point of practically being a part of it, allowing people to sing into the mic, holding hands and hair of those he could reach and generally making sure those near enough felt as though they were part of the show. It has to be said... Juliano is not in possession of the world's most tuneful voice, but what he lacks in range he makes up for in ability to utilise the notes he can hit, and an impressive capacity for screaming.
The rest of the band are equally good at their chosen tasks, with Chad and Timmy the guitarists duelling and harmonising with equal skill, and Ronnie doing his usual trick of spinning while rattling off heavy bass, and Justin drumming a sturdy backbone into the affair.
The set was one that was built to please fans from across the eras, including the unhinged hardcore-influenced 'Eulogies And Epitaphs', the poetic singalong 'We Are Always Searching', 'Dark Carnival Of The Immaculate' - a personal favourite of mine with an atmosphere think enough to suffocate a lesser human, and the arguable juvenile yet hard-rocking and intense 'Smile Of A Jesus Freak'. The biggest surprise of the setlist was the inclusion of 'This Is Home', their only "true" love song that lifted many members of the crowd into a state of euphoria.
Throughout their set, crowdsurfers and stage-divers were coming in thick and fast, often pounced upon by a bandmember before being thrown back into the periodically seething moshpit. This reached its inevitable climax in the final song, where the crowd flooded the stage, your intrepid reviewer included, and the band, valiantly playing on after having redeemed the evening, were lost in a sea of moshing fans.
If you ask me, the bill was a little mismatched, but one and a half years on I Am Ghost still have the ability to deliver a blinder regardless.
So. This new scene of ours. It thinks it is big and it thinks it is clever... and for all its embarrassing features, if it springs more live bands like I Am Ghost, it may just have a point.
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