Grave

w/ Scratch and Sniff, Roskopp, Urgrund, Fuck… I’m Dead and Gospel of the Horns

The Corner Hotel – Richmond, 7th December 2008.

Five local support bands is too many, regardless of how good or bad they may be. When an international band tours that I’m interested in going to see, I’m going for that band. Having one or two local supports is of course a must; it gives them extra promotion to crowds that wouldn’t usually go see them, and makes the ever-increasing ticket prices less of a turn off. Five though, is too much for me, and a lot of other people I know.
Sure, there’s the whole “well if you don’t like them, don’t go watch them” argument that I’m sure some people have floating in their heads, but there are two situations in which that doesn’t apply and more often than not, one of them is the case. What if I want to see one of the earlier bands but am not interested in the three in between? I don’t want to have to wait around for hours in a hot, busy pub with overpriced drinks (see: The HiFi Bar). Yes, I could to another pub instead, but I was going out for a night of metal, not a night of sitting in an inner-city pub with hundreds of trendy people and shit music, buying overpriced drinks.
The second situation is when I don’t know any of the support bands. I’m more than happy to go to a gig with two local supports that I don’t know, and give them both a listen, but not when there’s five! A couple of carefully chosen, quality support bands is what I want.

Quality over quantity.

My point is, personally, I dislike having so many support bands unless it’s advertised as a festival or something along those lines. Anyway, I probably should get onto the review, especially since as it turned out, I couldn’t make it to this event until half way through the fourth bands set anyway…

… and boy am I glad I couldn’t get there earlier. The interestingly titled ‘Fuck… I’m Dead’ were one of the most boring live bands I’ve ever witnessed. I entered the Corner Hotel and was greeted with a wall of tedious grindcore coming from a stage so small you couldn’t swing a dead goat on it. Not what I was hoping for. I like a bit of grind, and I certainly like a decent amount of brutal music, but this was a case of just fast, heavy music with not an interesting side to it. The crowd seemed to get a laugh out of the usual style of grind song titles, featuring a range of body part references and coarse language – something I’ve never quite understood the appeal of. I don’t plan on ever having to sit through another set from that band again.

Along with everybody else, I made a trip to the bar before heading over to the main stage, eager to see Australian metal veterans ‘Gospel of the Horns’ hit the stage for what was unfortunately their final show ever. By the time the band had hit the stage, the crowd had filled the front half of the room and a mosh soon followed. It’s really not often you see a crowd so active and dedicated to a live Aussie metal band, so it’s always a great thing to see when a decent mosh starts going. There were even a couple of stage dives which were a nice addition. Gospel roared through a great selection of songs and apart from a few issues with the guitar and vocals dropping out on occasion, it was a very solid performance. I won’t go into another rant but another thing that I’m not a huge fan of is the whole ‘planned encore’ that has become a staple part of bigger band’s sets. An unplanned one on the other hand, is always a great thing to see and a signal that the band really appreciates the crowd. After a bit of an audience chant, the music playing over the speakers was turned down on the bands request, they plugged their instruments back in and blasted through one final song. A fantastic performance and one I am definitely glad I was there for. That band will be sorely missed.

The curtains closed and the crowd spread out, not only to the bar but also out of the venue. As I crossed the street to grab a cold drink from a kebab store, I saw quite a few people actually leaving before Grave hit the stage. It’s a shame for the Swedish death metallers, but it’s fairly clear that much of the crowd came just to see Gospel’s final show.

An intro track blasted over the speakers, the curtains opened and Grave jumped into their first song. At first, the crowd was pathetic with only a handful of people near the front but thankfully it filled up a bit more by the start of the second song. The audience was nowhere near as wild as they were for Gospel, and apart from the usual raising of the metal fist in between songs, there was little reaction from the crowd at all. There was a good range of tracks in the set list, both old and new, although if the band didn’t actually introduce each song I would have been surprised if more than two dozen people there actually knew them. The highlights were easily the groovier tracks, because while the heavier tracks were great for a bit of headbanging, they came across as a tad uninspiring. “Turning Black” and “A World in Darkness” on the other hand were fantastic live, thoroughly enjoyable. The overall sound was decent, perhaps a bit muddy but that’s expected when it comes to the heavier bands. The mix was fairly balanced and there weren’t any silent instruments, and the guitar solos pierced through the rest spectacularly. My only real complaint is that it was all just a bit too loud. I usually don’t mind it loud, I don’t wear earplugs after all, but I had to move back a bit by the end of the set because it was a bit much for my ears.

While Grave certainly put on a good show, and I’m sure their fans didn’t go home disappointed, Gospel were really the highlight of the night.

Click here to see photos from the night.

Reviewed by Mitch Booth (Mean Machine)