LIVE REVIEW: Silicone Tongue, Jilter off Kilter. 5/06/24, San Fran (eyegum wednesday), Wellington.

 

LIVE REVIEW: Silicone Tongue, Jilter off Kilter. 5/06/24, San Fran (eyegum wednesday), Wellington.

 



after some time experimenting with being a shut-in (can't recommend it enough), i once again must brave the outside world to heed the siren song emanating from the mecca of 7 dollar beer and sticky hardwood floors. it's been a while since i've reviewed an Eyegum Wednesday, and i picked a really great one to come back on.


i'd go as far as to call it a pretty historic moment. a rare night when everything was extremely perfect and nothing was bad. if i was stabbed to death at this show the worst i could give it would be a 4/5. it's easy to come down on Eyegum Wednesdays, for being studenty, for the mediocre bands, and for being pretty empty most of the time until the nursing students start to filter in when the DJ comes on, but this week it was very close to being a perfect night.


i was genuinely shocked by Silicone Tongue. i'd like to think of myself as being on friendly terms with the members but even then i was going into the show expecting something much harder to listen to. i didn't know these noise musicians could actually write songs. fucking good ones too. hell. i didn't think they'd blow me away as hard as they did. it's one of those bands you see that make you go “why the fuck didn't i think of doing that?” but, if you did try and do that, it wouldn't work, because you suck, and they rule. 



Jilter off Kilter is a long standing favourite of mine and i'm very sad to see that this is their penultimate show. i love them deeply and their recorded output doesn't do their live show any amount of justice. it's just like this huge whale of sound that lands upon thee. so thick and so cutting at the same time. i have no idea if i can make it to their last show but i do urge you to do your best to get there if you haven't caught them before. they bring the noise, and are also strong contenders for my mythical “nicest people in new zealand music list” i mentioned last year. i lent kenny my amp once for a show where i was opening it, and during their set he stood on top of it, riding it like a surfboard. it wasn't quite right after that, and i had to turn it over to someone much more technical than me to get it working properly again. and you know what? i never got mad at that. it was amazing to see in person and i can't get mad at someone like that. go see that band in person before they're gone. if you're left disappointed i have no faith in you or your taste in music.



it's a stone cold fuck you to the face of both of these incredible bands that the venue wasn't completely packed. Silicone Tongue managed a respectful half full crowd of friends (i've never seen so many piercings in my life) and interested onlookers. Jilter off Kilter had a full house by the end of the night but that was only after a shaky start. (annoyingly, the place only got crowded after the completely original, mind blowing-ly good bands were finished). for the next few days i'm going to be jabbing my finger at random people in public and asking them why they weren't there. those without a good excuse will be vaporised and those with one will still be judged.

 

~ 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