Now don’t get me wrong – I love the Tramshed as a venue. It’s the kind of size that feels busy even if it’s only half full, has a sensible layout facilities-wise, a stage that’s just the right height to be able to see the acts no matter who is standing in front of you and has a damn convenient location close enough to the city for most, but suburban enough for me to park right outside our esteemed editor’s house without having to pay. The downside of this being a residential area just that little bit further out of the city to avoid parking hassle means that noise curfews are clearly an ongoing challenge, so with a three-act line up, things start rather early, which is my only frustration with this fab little venue.
Too early for me unfortunately… Openers Collateral were in fact on stage so close to the doors time at 7p.m. that I was probably still trying to parallel park when they were finishing their set, which is a damn shame, as they’re a fine band and one I’ve been hoping to catch live for some time. Sorry boys, hopefully I will see you at the Skid Row show in Cardiff Uni on the 21st October.
This is a show that’s been plagued with challenges just getting to the point of actually happening though. Having been bounced around the calendars for two plus years by the pandemic, it almost vanished again completely after the news that original co-headliners The Dan Reed Network had to pull out at the last minute due to some unspecified injury on an unspecified member of the band. Which is frustrating because we journalists like to be specific…
By the time I finally get there, last minute substitutes The Treatment (10) are just about ready to start. I came across this Cambridge five piece when I got to review their Waiting For Good Luck album last year and as a band with five albums and a lot of shows under their belts, they do not disappoint. Given that this was intended to be a co-headline tour before Dan Reed dropped off at the eleventh hour, The Treatment get to deliver us a lengthier set than a support slot would normally dictate, so for an hour these guys really got to let rip, in a way that would have probably seen them thrown off the tour for being too good if this was the 1980’s so enamored of the headliners.
From their synchronised stage opening as they let rip with a pounding version of Let’s Get Dirty through to closer Shake The Mountain twelve songs later, The Treatment completely owned that stage. The material is good soulful and gutsy Rock’N’Roll, hugely influenced by the likes of 80’s early NWOBHM Def Leppard and Bon Scott era AC/DC, whilst sounding absolutely and uniquely their own and delivered with gallons of infectious energy. This is the kind of music that doesn’t go stale when done right, and with a charismatic and lively front man like Tom Rampton leading the charge, The Treatment did it absolutely bang to rights. Blessed with a remarkably good sound mix and an incredibly receptive audience I can’t help feeling that the next time I will see these boys it will be as headliners in their own rights.
By the time Reckless Love (9) hit the stage, the crowd feels like it may have thinned a little. The punters certainly don’t seem so enthusiastic as the opening bars of Turborider rip the air, but I suspect many tickets were bought off of the back that this was supposed to be a co-headliner with an act that have a more established fan base over here than these boys from Finland do, and I’m guessing more than a few may have also asked for refunds when the line-up changed. This is a shame, because by the time their set finishes, there are a lot more Reckless Love fans than the night started with I suspect. It’s been eight years since they played here, so they needed to work this crowd, and work it they did.
Walking on dressed like they’ve just come tuned up to a Crockett from Miami Vice cosplay lookalike event on a grey September Wednesday in Wales doesn’t help either, but fortunately they ditch the shoulder padded white jackets after 2 numbers and let rip, knowing they have a lukewarm crowd to work over. The band make no apologies for the fact that since there are only four of them that they need a synth click track to support the newer material and I don’t have a problem with that, it’s just live the older material written around the four-piece drums, bass, guitar and vocalist model comes off live more organically. That’s not going to stop them giving it a good go though, with seven of the tracks from the eleven on the new album getting an airing. Now, I quite liked their hugely Synthwave Turborider album when I reviewed it on these pages earlier this year, but although that material works well on disc it didn’t translate quite so well into the live arena initially.
I suspect a bigger influence on the audience response was simply one of familiarity It was clear that many of the punters weren’t familiar with the new material, but Reckless Love wisely threw a belting cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s Bark At The Moon into the set five songs in and from that moment the audience was theirs for the taking, regardless of from whence their remainder of their set list came. Live Olli Herman’s voice has regained the roughness missing from that last studio album, whilst still really hitting the notes and the huge, joyful smile on his face is so infectious, that he has the audience in the palm of his hand by the time he’s halfway through their ninety-minute set.
The band really went for it and having taken the risk of carrying on with this revamped tour despite everything deserves respect. They worked hard, and they won a lukewarm audience over completely. I wasn’t expecting it, but this proved to be a belter of a night despite the thinness of the crowd. Neither of the acts pulled their punches and earned each and every one of those ear-ripppingly loud cheers they got. Not bad for a grey Welsh Wednesday in September…
Too early for me unfortunately… Openers Collateral were in fact on stage so close to the doors time at 7p.m. that I was probably still trying to parallel park when they were finishing their set, which is a damn shame, as they’re a fine band and one I’ve been hoping to catch live for some time. Sorry boys, hopefully I will see you at the Skid Row show in Cardiff Uni on the 21st October.
This is a show that’s been plagued with challenges just getting to the point of actually happening though. Having been bounced around the calendars for two plus years by the pandemic, it almost vanished again completely after the news that original co-headliners The Dan Reed Network had to pull out at the last minute due to some unspecified injury on an unspecified member of the band. Which is frustrating because we journalists like to be specific…
By the time I finally get there, last minute substitutes The Treatment (10) are just about ready to start. I came across this Cambridge five piece when I got to review their Waiting For Good Luck album last year and as a band with five albums and a lot of shows under their belts, they do not disappoint. Given that this was intended to be a co-headline tour before Dan Reed dropped off at the eleventh hour, The Treatment get to deliver us a lengthier set than a support slot would normally dictate, so for an hour these guys really got to let rip, in a way that would have probably seen them thrown off the tour for being too good if this was the 1980’s so enamored of the headliners.
From their synchronised stage opening as they let rip with a pounding version of Let’s Get Dirty through to closer Shake The Mountain twelve songs later, The Treatment completely owned that stage. The material is good soulful and gutsy Rock’N’Roll, hugely influenced by the likes of 80’s early NWOBHM Def Leppard and Bon Scott era AC/DC, whilst sounding absolutely and uniquely their own and delivered with gallons of infectious energy. This is the kind of music that doesn’t go stale when done right, and with a charismatic and lively front man like Tom Rampton leading the charge, The Treatment did it absolutely bang to rights. Blessed with a remarkably good sound mix and an incredibly receptive audience I can’t help feeling that the next time I will see these boys it will be as headliners in their own rights.
By the time Reckless Love (9) hit the stage, the crowd feels like it may have thinned a little. The punters certainly don’t seem so enthusiastic as the opening bars of Turborider rip the air, but I suspect many tickets were bought off of the back that this was supposed to be a co-headliner with an act that have a more established fan base over here than these boys from Finland do, and I’m guessing more than a few may have also asked for refunds when the line-up changed. This is a shame, because by the time their set finishes, there are a lot more Reckless Love fans than the night started with I suspect. It’s been eight years since they played here, so they needed to work this crowd, and work it they did.
Walking on dressed like they’ve just come tuned up to a Crockett from Miami Vice cosplay lookalike event on a grey September Wednesday in Wales doesn’t help either, but fortunately they ditch the shoulder padded white jackets after 2 numbers and let rip, knowing they have a lukewarm crowd to work over. The band make no apologies for the fact that since there are only four of them that they need a synth click track to support the newer material and I don’t have a problem with that, it’s just live the older material written around the four-piece drums, bass, guitar and vocalist model comes off live more organically. That’s not going to stop them giving it a good go though, with seven of the tracks from the eleven on the new album getting an airing. Now, I quite liked their hugely Synthwave Turborider album when I reviewed it on these pages earlier this year, but although that material works well on disc it didn’t translate quite so well into the live arena initially.
I suspect a bigger influence on the audience response was simply one of familiarity It was clear that many of the punters weren’t familiar with the new material, but Reckless Love wisely threw a belting cover of Ozzy Osbourne’s Bark At The Moon into the set five songs in and from that moment the audience was theirs for the taking, regardless of from whence their remainder of their set list came. Live Olli Herman’s voice has regained the roughness missing from that last studio album, whilst still really hitting the notes and the huge, joyful smile on his face is so infectious, that he has the audience in the palm of his hand by the time he’s halfway through their ninety-minute set.
The band really went for it and having taken the risk of carrying on with this revamped tour despite everything deserves respect. They worked hard, and they won a lukewarm audience over completely. I wasn’t expecting it, but this proved to be a belter of a night despite the thinness of the crowd. Neither of the acts pulled their punches and earned each and every one of those ear-ripppingly loud cheers they got. Not bad for a grey Welsh Wednesday in September…
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