02/11/07 - Music Live

While at the Music Live fair in Birmingham this Friday, I managed to catch the live sets of two bands in between hours of mad guitarring/playing theremin. Although I didn't go specifically to see these bands, I decided i'd write a short review about each.

The first band was This Is Menace, a 'supergroup' made up of 4 core members (2 from the band Pitchshifter) and various guest vocalists. The guest vocalists at this show were Colin Doran from Hundred Reasons and Mikee Goodman from Sikth. They played a type of metalcore, with a lot of screaming, which automatically put me off the band and forced me to leave the tent after 2 or 3 songs. The guitarists' tones, the mix and the music were all great but sadly, the vocals could not be ignored.
[Rating: 1/5]

A couple of hours later, a ska band called Big Hand took to the stage - the only band i'd really wanted to hear after reading a short description of their music in one of the brochures handed out to me. Simply put, they didn't let me down. They played a very catchy form of ska, which appealed to the masses as could be seen by the size of the mosh/dance pit near the front of the stage that got gradually bigger as the band's set went on. They were, of course, energetic, as their music needed them to be - the trumpet player certainly attracting the most attention with his mullet and classy one-handed style of playing, which allowed his other hand to perform various actions ranging from getting the crowd jumping to holding the microphone in front of the sound hole so that he could walk around freely. There wasn't much variation from song to song in terms of style but they were fairly tight and were very aware of the crowd, managing to get everybody in the hall to slowly get lower and lower during the last song of the set, until everyone was sitting down on the floor. Being a small band, they still have a few aspects they could improve but on the whole, I was very impressed and bought 3 of their EPs after the show, splitting the cost with a few friends of mine.
[Rating: 4/5]