. The stage is two sided, offering ample opportunity for falling off, and the venue is tiny (even more opportunity for creating an extra drum beat with the neck of a bass guitar). Also the room has a high ceiling, so someone decided that it should be very loud, which is never normally a problem, it's just they forgot to turn the vocal mics up with it.
Fri 19th March 2004
Callous, El Cielo, Moth
The Old Angel may be one of the best know venues in the city, but it has to be one of the worst in terms of layout
Callous (above) got the ball rolling, but it's a shame that their usual crunchy riffs were lost in surplus levels of distortion. Theirs was a steady set, with the exception of a brand new song, "We've F**ked up" were the words from the front man, as the song grinded to a halt half way through. But they continued the remaining songs with dignity. The drummer always energetic and certainly did his job to get the others back on track. They deserved the massive cheer they got at the end. If you want to see a band that makes your head bop uncontrollably up and down check Callous out.
El Cielo (above) were next on the scene, the first thing that struck me about them was, irregular and complex drum beats. You can forget that head bopping thing with this band, unless you know the songs as well as them. Another thing that struck me was the insanely talented, 'why isn't he playing somewhere bigger than The Old Angel?' guitarist. This man took the roles of lead and rhythm guitar and mashed them into one, without even breaking into a sweat. The vocalist was not done justice by the 'shoddy' sound but from what I could tell he had a voice that was both versatile and reliable. A down side to this band was that it was difficult to determine one song from another, but one has stuck with me since, 'Deity' I think they called it.
Moth, the only band on show with three instead of four members, headlined and did a good job. Their sound is easy to listen to without ever being easy listening. The bassist was very talented and charismatic, the drummer kept himself to himself. It was a tight and well practised band, I didn't notice any mistakes, although they claim to have made them. Their music style is one that suits many, definitely a good set to perform live.
The bands are worth seeing, it's a shame that The Angel can't offer more to them, but it brings the punters in, and it's not hard to see why. They just need to sort out the sound.
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