Skindred, Soil & Viza O2 Academy Bristol
So once more over the bridge to Bristol
and after a few coffee's (your intrepid traveller was not at his best) and into
the already crammed O2 for the final parts of Viza who sound a lot like System
of A Down with the whole American/Armenian shtick mixed with nu-metal, good
enough for two songs but I can't give them an unbiased review so onto band
2.
Soil
So Soil returned with Ryan McCombs in 2012
and since then they are picking up where they left off after 2004's Redefined.
The band came out to the normal opener Breaking
Me Down from their debut and
then straight into Loaded Gun from their latest release. I must
say I didn't notice the join between old stuff and new stuff as Soil are one of
those bands who just do what they do, this is Southern groove metal. The band
are driven by heavy bass lines, chunky riffs and McCombs great vocals. The band
moved through their tracks from the McCombs era albums and threw in a cover of
Ram Jam's Black Betty which wasn't needed but was still
pretty good. The band were very professional and played their set with aplomb,
after a particularly long changeover. The finale came with that staccato riff
of Halo which started the mass sing-along
and left the capacity crowd on a high. 7/10
Skindred
Skindred always known as one of the best
live bands on the circuit and as the intro tape of
Thunderstruck and the
Empire Theme from Star Wars blared through the
P.A the band made their way to stage, bedecked in their Skindred branded suits
and moved headlong into the rush of
Rat
Race which was followed up by
the shout along of
Stand For Something both tracks keeping the fans
jumping, moshing and pumping their fists with glee, this followed into
Doom Riff and it's "whoa" chorus
before the first song from the new album came in the shape of the excellent
Ninja. With those first 4 songs
Skindred showed that they have more talent and can generate more excitement
from frontman Benji's sunglasses than many bands do in their entire set. The
band throughout were on fire with Mikeydemus providing the riff rock riot
(sorry) and Dan Pugsley driving the rhythms on his bass, special mention has to
go to drummer Arya Goggin and DJ/Samples Dan Sturgess who I'll mention later in
detail. Still the band's driving force is Benji who oozes charisma and is
somewhere between Freddie Mercury and Del Boy Trotter (if he was from Newport
of course!) his between song banter is second to none and you genuinely don't
know what he will do next. The Ragga was brought to the front on
State Of Emergency and
Selector and the dub infected
Cut Dem which led into oldie
Babylon and the heavy as hell
Bruises which destroyed that dared to pit.
So after this was mid set intermission which involved a drum solo mixed with a
sample mash up section which saw House Of Pain, The Beastie Boys, Queen and The
Prodigy mixed together and turned the O2 into a club like atmosphere and
allowed Benji to return to the stage after a costume change before moving into
two new ones with
Kill The
Power and
Worlds On Fire set to become future set main
stays, after another mash up of Macklemore with metal the band started to play
Sad But True which moved into the classic
double whammy of
Trouble and
Pressure.
The final part of the night is where things went a bit strange, the band played
Saturday from the new album which just
seems to be a bit made for radio and sounding like weak pop-punk, not the music
Skindred should be making at this point in their career and it shouldn't be
played this late into the set especially when it was followed by the still
venue levelling
Nobody which ended the main set. So 11pm
and the band were running over a brief intermission another costume change and
then they arrived back on stage with newbie
We
Live which seems was better
in the live arena, but it does seem to be a rare misstep for the band as it
does sound like AOR (and not in a good way) still all this was washed away with
the final hurrah of
Warning which
featured the now legendary Newport helicopter and a wall of death. With the
final chord echoing throughout the arena the opening strains of Carly Simon's
Nobody Does It Better rang through the O2, it is hard to
argue with it as the band get better every time. Not bad for a band that are
perfect!! 10/10
I'm so gutted that I couldn't get to the gig. I love the new album, it's their best yet. Saturday is perhaps one of the weaker tracks but We Live is destined to become one of their classics.
ReplyDeleteNo denying though that Skindred are the best live act in the UK at the moment. Class, and honed perfectly.