I don�t think the Roadhouse has seen a gig like this in a very long time...
But first. The support band -
Bullyrag seek to emulate the Dub War trick of melding together several different musical styles into one unified caustic noise. But whereas Dub War have incendiary punk guitar noise courtesy of Jeff Rose, Bullyrag have some guy who plays wanky guitar solos, which blunts the impact somewhat. The guy in the samples booth type thing was cool, occasionally madly running out onto the stage and leaping about. The songs were still fairly engaging, but the singer just annoys between songs, constantly repeating hello over and over. Okay as a support band, but nothing compared with what was to follow.
Pitchshifter are probably the best extreme metal band in the country. Period. (Get those votes in for them to open the Ozz-fest). This is the cutting edge. This is metal �98. Fear Factory have yet to release an album this year, so at the moment Pitchshifter define where metal is heading into the next millenium. The emphasis is still on extreme metal, but elements of techno and drum �n� bass are sneaking in at the edges.
Tonight Pitchshifter are blinding, a friend of mine comes away saying it was the best gig he�d ever seen. The foot is to the floor throughout the set. Keeping the energy levels at maximum, they don�t even stop for the encores, and just play until they�re done instead. The security is cool as well. A gig this small with this many crowd surfers, you expect the security to be apes. This gig has a man-mountain with a tattoed skin-head, who looks like he�s going to beat the shit out of the entire crowd. But as it gets going, I think he starts to like Pitchshifter. Maybe the attitude reminds him of when punk first broke. Whatever it is, he spends the rest of the gig with a big grin on his face. A number of ceiling tiles come down due to crowd surfing, he just picks them up and breaks them over his head one by one. At the end of the gig the band make everyone give him a round of applause!
Musically we get a lot of new songs, and very little of the old faves, but when you�re on the cutting edge, you don�t want to be playing songs that are 2 years old, although Virus and Genius both go down like the greatest songs in history. Jim Davis� addition to the band is an inspired move, providing an even bigger, sharper on stage noise. Frontman JS Claydon comes across as a very intelligent guy in his between song chat�s, the antithesis of the thug I�d been expecting. He believes in getting people to wake up and see what�s going on around them, and with the band attracting the level of publicity that is building, he might just achieve it.
Overall, this was one hell of a night.
Most-overused quote of the night: �Here�s another new song�