A View From The Back Of The Room: Raveneye

Raveneye & Reigning Days, Fuel Rock Club, Cardiff

Forgoing my usual gig buddies I headed to Fuel Rock Club in Cardiff with the musical family at Retro-Vibe Records to see rock trio Raveneye in their first headline tour. The gig was off the back of Welsh promotion agency Pity My Brain's Brain Freeze festival where the three man rock unit went down a storm heating up a cold winter's night in Wales.

So into the small rock club we marched and waited to see if Pity My Brain and Raveneye could deliver again. First up were radio darlings Reigning Days (6) who played rock with an modern independent radio bothering edge bringing to mind Biffy Clyro et al. The trio all played well but did seem to be a little underwhelmed that they were playing such a small room to only a hundred people they had a couple of technical hitches but for the most part played well albeit rather statically. The band have been featured on Kerrang radio and channel and this gave them a cocky edge but the songs didn't really reflect this praise until the latter part of their set. Still worthwhile if you like the kind of rock that would be featured heavily on Radio 1.

A switch over and the 'older' members of the audience started to fill the room, Raveneye (8) have an old school style blending blues and hard rock all brought together by the guitar wizardry of Oli Brown, who has been on the scene since he was only really a boy but after a break the former blues-rock wunderkid has finally found a suitable vehicle for his scores of tasty blues rock riffs and has also managed to move away from the limelight with a band rather than as a solo artist. As the three men came on to the stage the sound gremlins crept in a again with feedback a gogo from Oli's mic meaning that his bluesy tones were not that audible to most of us in the room, these issues stayed around for a while, the sound man seemingly not being able to fix the problem, however with a switch of mics the reverb abated and things got a lot louder and tougher. Brown's guitar playing is excellent when he's not laying down thick riffs he's ripping up and down the fretboard soloing with all the passion of a blues legend, his guitar showcases are strongly backed by the boileroom powerhouse of bassist Aaron Spiers and drummer Kev Hickman who keep things groove-laden and thumping along as Brown shows his skills, Spiers also gets bonus points for strength carrying Brown on his shoulders for a solo set while also playing the bass. The set featured some new tracks that sat perfectly with the older material from their debut EP showing everyone that when the debut full length does come out it is going to be jam packed with cracking songs on this evidence. Yet again Raveneye set the night on fire with their high-energy blues-rock power, come back soon guys, I'm sure many will agree with me