LIVE REVIEW: Cruelly, Sleeping Village. 6/03/24, San Fran (eyegum wednesday), Wellington.

 

LIVE REVIEW: Cruelly, Sleeping Village. 6/03/24, San Fran (eyegum wednesday), Wellington.

 

students rejoice, it’s the first eyegum wednesday of the year! Roll up, roll up to smoke cigarettes on the historic balcony, drink an overpriced beer and get yelled at by kenny. personally, i came to the gig purely to see sleeping village. ever since i advertised it’s existence early this year i’ve been waiting for the opportunity to actually attend the event. I spent all wednesday shaking in anticipation as i plugged away at my lectures. a quick social call first (i make a fool of myself at tekken), then we’re off to the races.  


after the necessary sensory input to start a proper night out is consumed (1 cheese, grilled. 1 beer, 330 ml can.) i can begin the walk to san fran, only 15 minutes around the corner. i arrive shortly after the doors opened yet the place is already filling with people. By the time the first band is ready to go on the crowd is too thick to properly navigate from one end to another. bar staff in cute outfits run back and forth trying to stem the tide of dirty glasses accumulating on every surface, to little avail. The crowd looks like mostly students, evenly distributed between guys and girls. lots of bad facial hair on display, and a lack of show etiquette from those new to the city as people shove their way to the front.   


opening band Cruelly left very little impression on me, unfortunately. very talented musicians (the drummer and the bassist especially were killing it the whole time) but i’m so done with the 90’s, man. i really don’t want to listen to someone who’s musical world started and ended with In Utero and Celebrity Skin. grunge was cool for like two seconds and i didn’t like it much then either. we’re firmly living in the time of the y2k revival and people still aping nirvana are either ignorant or stupid. an ok band, but i’m not impressed yet. points for what i think could have been a Melvins cover but i’m too jaded to think that’s cool anymore. i wasn’t mad this band was here, but i’m not running to go to the next show they put on.


leaving me cold


after that begins the frantic rush to the balcony. some people are buzzing about what they’ve just seen but others are echoing my sentiment. i manage to start an argument over the alcohol content of a lemon lime and bitters (is that not common knowledge? what did you think bitters was?) to help pass time.


a quick line check later and we’re on to Sleeping Village. clearly they’ve been working on their set since the last time i saw them because the transitions between songs have become a lot smoother, and the mood of the show becomes a constant lift with the slower songs at the start ramping to the metal beatdown at the end, unlike the grab bag of the previous shows i’ve seen. it really adds something, which is special because i already thought they were shit-hot to begin with. they’re definitely the winning band of tonight, getting cheered back on stage for an intense encore and eliciting multiple singalongs. the resulting mosh pit was so intense i ended up loosing a shirt button. not entirely sure how that even happens.


metal massacre


a solid show overall, me thinks. packed. decent bands. be sad if you missed it, but go listen to their albums and form your own opinions, or come to the next show. come find me next wednesday, i’ll be the guy combing the floor for a shirt button.


~ O

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LIVE REVIEW: A.G Studio, Cleomace, ESWSG, Wallflower, Silicone Tongue. 10/07/24, Valhalla, Wellington.

Image
LIVE REVIEW: A.G Studio, Cleomace, Elizabeth Sanctuary Welding School for Girls, Wallflower, Silicone Tongue. 10/07/24, Valhalla, Wellington.    there's something very special about getting to see a very long bill. For one night, a venue takes on an almost festival-like quality as people start drawing up lines and marking out their territory for the night and mini civilizations, with their own customs and alliances, are formed. for the next 4 hours you get to live in your own world with people who have everything and nothing in common with you, and you do it while getting pissed and watching great music.  I was late showing up and they were still trying to finish sound checking the last few artists. I had to step over discarded guitar cases and snare drums to get a beer so I'd have something to do instead of talk to people who kept coming up to compliment my suit. People were filtering in slowly, slowed further by whoever was working the door composing sheet music for a...
Read more

LIVE REVIEW: OTISFEST. 14/04/24, San Fran, Wellington.

Image
  LIVE REVIEW: OTISFEST. 14/04/24, San Fran, Wellington.      THE PRELUDE i walk into sanfran dead on four, and there’s already a crowd standing ready by the stage. cameramen scurry around stressing over technical details while various band members glue themselves to the bar, trying to find the balance between drunk enough to ignore the pressure and not drunk enough to keep yourself upright. they’ve got good reason to be stressed, Otisfest is one of the only concerts this year that actually matter.  tickets were completely sold out online, and there were still people trying to get in when the first band went on. i don’t know if it was my outfit or my notebook i was furiously scribbling in, but security kept sending these people to me to help them. i guess they thought i was staff and i had to point many panicked indie rock fans in the right direction.  people took to drinking early and hard. there was a genuine atmosphere of movement here, the idea of on...
Read more

LIVE REVIEW: Chlorine w/ B.O.G, Mudgoose. 17/05/24, Valhalla, Wellington.

Image
LIVE REVIEW: Chlorine w/ B.O.G, Mudgoose. 17/05/24, Valhalla, Wellington.   i must admit, i have my own problems with valhalla as a venue. i hate vaping, i hate hoodies with writing on the arms, i hate dudes who wear shorts and i hate hardcore, still, i must concede that they have one of the best sounding stages in all of wellington, plus cheap drinks and a nice vibe, so when they put on bands that aren’t usual crapola metal garbage, i like to be there. i mostly went to catch Mudgoose , to be fair, and because i knew some of my friends would be around, but i was open to new things. informants told me that headliners Chlorine are a shoegaze band from some part of auckland that no one else i know is from, and that they’re hitting it big on spotify thanks to some careful playlist promotion. cool, whatever. i intentionally didn’t listen to any of their music because i wanted to go in raw for this, and i got the sense that hearing them before i head out would discourage me from ever m...
Read more