Hard Working Class Heroics - Saturday
saturday HWCH 2011 in review
another of my festival highlights, ghost estates is a band that put on a DAMN good showing, every time, without fail. thumping bass lines and melodic guitar riffs fuse powerfully alongside electronic synth interludes, and all pervasive drums, building songs into seriously intense scenarios. the fivesome (sometime sixsome on the night, with the inclusion of a female vocalist on one or two songs) have a diverse and acute sound, which is evidence of the myriad of musical influences and backgrounds of each of the band members. lyrically vivid, the multi-layered vocals are truly striking. its seriously impressive stuff.
damn laminate misprint meant that i missed what was no doubt a rollicking and vigorous performance by the two-piece, which kicked off forty minutes before it was billed to. an unfortunate situation for many fans that surely turned up at the allotted time, as billed. fortunately, the lads play the academy as part of the IMRO showcase on october 14th. phew.
members of the popical island brigade, this is a band that infuses the talent and sound of some (all?) of the members *squarehead*, *feed the bears* and *yeh, deadlies* within the band, which is fronted by a line up of female vocalists. delightfully left of center, this bands eclectic line up and sound bursts off the stage, and had the crowd of the workman’s club swaying and bopping to their sugar coated melodies. with a surf pop sound that lives up to their namesake collective, this band was a quirky and sweetly delightful.
sweet holy hell, this was a show that banged off the ceiling and had sweat dripping from every pore of both audience and band alike. visceral, intense and oozing classic, gritty rock’n’roll appeal, the minutes show was an unstoppable freight train of drums, guitars and lyrical hysteria. in fact, after the show, i even saw a punter let a taxi drive over his feet…. twice…. result.
