A highly anticipated sell out show, featuring space diddlers Rings Of Saturn. The Exchange was absolutely heaving. Rowdy crowds jostled into the main room, proving nigh on impossible to get much further in than the doorway if you weren’t there in plenty of time.
Canadian powerhouse Brand Of Sacrifice (5) opened the show with several gut punches in the form of beatdowns and riffs. A highly energetic performance got the crowd going almost instantly, which is no mean feat on a grim Monday night, and the frontman held the fans in the palm of his hands. Not a fan of their style myself, but I’ve got to hand it to them the audience response was electric.
Next up were Florida’s Traitors (3). Again, audience response was ecstatic - there were clearly a lot of fans of the band in attendance. Unfortunately, I wasn’t one of them. If you really enjoy the dull, repetitive, thuds of a bowling ball rolling around in a washing machine on a low cycle, then these guys might be the band for you. One might expect a tour headlined by Saturn to feature a high level of technical guitar wizardry, but sadly this hasn’t been the case thus far. Perhaps it’s my tastes and preferences getting in the way, but this band did nothing for me. Not even the guitarist wearing a bright orange sock on his head could save it.
Things picked up musically when Enterprise Earth (6) took to the stage. Interesting guitar leads, with some genuine groove spattered about the set, I got a lot more enjoyment out of this band than the previous two. With a name like Enterprise Earth, they fit right in with the headliners, and the comparison to the music will always be there. While not quite reaching the lofty heights of RoS, the technical skill from the band members was a cut above the rest, and a welcome change. Oddly though, the crowd weren’t digging them so much, cementing my opinion that I was completely perpendicular to the audience. I already stood out as being one of the few guys there who wasn’t 5’9”, with ear lobes stretched to the size of flying saucers, sporting a muscle tee to show off their disdain for leg day - so it makes sense for tastes not to align.
Rings Of Saturn (8) ended the night’s proceedings with an out of this world showcase of musical ability, and technical prowess. Easy to see why their haters cry that the guitars are backing tracked when you hear the sheer volume of notes coming out of the monitors. Both Lucas and Joel pose a constant fire hazard from their warp speed fretwork, their 9 string guitars being used for both meteoric leads and deep impacted breakdowns. The contrast between the two soundscapes adeptly utilising the absurd instruments. But it’s not all about the guitars - frontman Ian Bearer completely dominated the vocals of the night with an incredible display of lung power, and drummer Mike Caputo doing an incredible job of keeping time for the band.
The set highlighted tracks from their new release Gidim, like Mental Prolapse that had myself and Dr Waifu singing along like "lunar-tics" (FFS - Ed), but they also knew to play fan classics like The Relic, and Godless Times. My main criticism of their set was the overall lack of interaction. Aside from introducing the final song, the band barely acknowledged the audience. There could’ve been a one way mirror between the stage and the ticket holders, and there wouldn’t have been much of a difference. This didn’t ruin the set but it did detract from the purpose of seeing a “live band”.
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