Basik Records
Being in Manchester’s Jabez Clegg on a warm summer night is not always something at the top of my list of things to do when I have a bottle of Blossom Hill in my fridge and the new CSI: NY boxset on my bookshelf… but what the hell, it can wait.
Arriving at the venue halfway through SMM’s set I missed most of what seemed to be a pretty solid set from a band I’ve had numerous experiences of in the past. Frontman Carl Banks proved to be rather interesting both on and off stage throughout the course of the night, using his dance moves to take on the late Wacko Jacko... as well as some unfortunate bloke in a white t-shirt!
A pretty impressive effort from these local lads, who clearly brought some of their mates along for the ride in the hope of ‘tearing the place apart, side to side, front to back’ as so many of these bands try to do these days.
Anyway, when they’d vacated the stage, it was time for No Consequence to have a go at making some music, but quite where the crowd went, I do not know, although singer Phil had told me they had a couple of promotion problems, so I’ll let them off with that.
Jumping on the ever-so-popular bandwagon of having two dedicated singers (in which I mean singers who don’t prance around with guitars and other instruments) the band did put everything into their somewhat short set, and Phil even waltzed around the dance floor with the bands lone uber-fan, who I’m sure was supposed to be sat on the door X-ing everyone’s hand on the way in.
Following on from them were A Dark Orbit, all the way from the US - and clearly at the top of their game. Despite only being around for 11 months, it's pretty impressive that these guys have such a tight sound, that many metal bands find impossible to create after years together.
Enigmatic singer Chad Kapper spews forth some of the rawest, most controlled screams and growls I’ve ever heard in my life, and to watch him live should be an inspiration to other musicians in their genre.
When Chad had done for the night and gone to swill down some hot honey and lemon for those poor vocal chords, the token pretty boys in Evita took to the stage, and suddenly the room was full - well, with a huge circle for the ‘moshers’ in the middle.
Although I hadn’t planned to stick around for these guys (it was past my bedtime after all) just one song in and I was completely hooked. You see, I’m really ‘into’ bands who can mix different vocals and still sound decent… not like Charlotte Church deciding to ditch the Opera for a pop career if you get me.
Evita’s frontman Aaron Beider knows how to work the crowd, whilst the so-called clean vocalists Michael Thompson and Chester Bennington look-alike Paul Perkins bring up the rear and mould together the whole thing together like a pair of musical tie wraps.
Out of all the bands here, if I had some spare cash on me I would have bought their album without a second thought, they have something very A Day To Remember-ish about them, despite sounding nothing like them at all… and we all know ADTR are my favourite band, so could Evita become my UK equivalent to Jeremy and friends? I think so…
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison