THE RED SHORE

w/ Antagonist A.D., 8 Foot Sativa + more

Zebedees – Christchurch, New Zealand, 14th February, 2009.

After 2 weeks traveling through the mountainous wild with a backpack on my back (rather in the boot of the hire car), finally I reached a somewhat heavy metal civilisation – Christchurch, New Zealand.

Coincidentally, given we were only staying at the hostel because all others were booked out, the original venue ‘Legends’ was a short 2 block stagger from where I was staying, however on arrival to the venue we were met by a couple of German’s, seemingly the only other 2 people who hadn’t heard of the venue change to Zebedees situated about 10kms away! So after a drive through the suburbs, and a stop at the local petrol station for directions, we finally arrived at the correct venues Zebedees.

The melodically metallic sounds of 8 Foot Sativa pulsating through the makeshift venue foyer were enough to wet my metal appetite with excitement of a great night to come. Playing a melodic death metal brand in the same vein as Arch Enemy, the crowd was alive and moving like I’ve almost never seen at (what was essentially) a local gig. Unfortunately that was all I could see as the stage was hardly raised from the floor and the 8 Foot band members didn’t live up to their name, being rather of the 5-6 foot range in height. Only once did I get a glimpse of a guitar, proving indeed that it as a live band on stage!

Next up, for some inexplicable reason given the quality before them, was what I consider the worst live band performance I have ever seen. And I mean that in every sense of the sentence. Microphone problems of course didn’t help for Auckland band Antagonist A.D., with the opening song quickly becoming worst than the black plague courtesy of said vocal instrument. But of course I won’t only lambast a band over technically difficulties, Antagonist were just terrible. If you could imagine the most generic metalcore band you’ve heard, then throw in bad clean vocals mixed with some on-par screams, and excess repetitions of the same breakdowns in every song, then your getting close.

But the most amazing thing about this band’s set was the crowd. For some completely inexplicable reason, the crowd was going mental! There was crowd singing and circle pits galore for the early error ridden songs. This was all probably due to the all ages factor, with people surely only just reaching puberty making me at 22 feel like a pensioner! However the honeymoon period of ‘its just technical errors making them sound bad’ line of thought ended when everyone in the venue eventually realised their inadequacy and showed this a couple of times with zero applause at the end of a song.

The final band for the night was from Geelong, Australia – The Red Shore. Seemingly on a high with the recent release of their debut full length ‘Unconsecrated’ (funnily enough unavailable in NZ due to DVD right issues in the country), the Victorians had scheduled two gigs in the country in Auckland and Christchurch. With the night wearing on a bedtime approaching for anyone under the age of 15, the slightly thinning crowd still proved hyper-energetic to the metalcore/tech death fusion of The Red Shore. Playing tracks ranging from their beginning in 2006, and lots of material from ‘Unconsecrated’, the bands sound on the night was slightly lacking with an inferior drum mix and a couple of technical errors, however the professionalism of the band showed through from a fairly entertaining night for this reviewer.

Review by Brendan Amos.
Thanks to the gig organisers for the venue change…