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| Six By Seven / ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - London, Astoria Wednesday 19th April 2000 |
I had heard many positive whispers about the first band, ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, from various sources so was looking forward to checking them out. Then I heard they would be on first, which was annoying as I was running late - fortunately for me I made it just in time, and pressed my way towards the front. I was not disappointed! What seems to be en vogue these days, the set starts off with a guitarist setting off a tape loop and plugging in and tuning up. The drummer comes on, takes a deep breath and starts pounding the skins. 2 more guitar players come on and plug in, tune up, and without a hint of warning they crash headlong into the first song. Great stuff. To describe their music is not too easy - in many ways typically rock (with hints as varied as Supergrass, Smashing Pumpkins, Mogwai) but with the modern tradition of instrument swapping. For the second track, the guitar player/lead singer takes up the bass, one of the other guitar players and the drummer swap places (and he becomes the lead singer). You get the idea. Most of the best tracks had the original drummer singing and throwing the guitar around - and yet he was a really good drummer too! Can't help with song titles I'm afraid as it's the first (and won't be the last) time I have seen them, but suffice to say the last track was jaw-droppingly stupendous. The vocalist 'loses' his mic stand, and loses his guitar connection to the amp so starts playing the guitar WITH his microphone. Inspired stuff. At the end, the drummer kicks over his set and with 3 strides joins the by now stunned audience in the mosh pit and one kid near me gets the guitar pedal as a present. So, ignore the 'goth' name - GO SEE!!!!!
So to Six By Seven. As is de rigeur it seems, the tape loop starts, the drummer starts hitting out the beat to '10 Places to Die', and the band stroll on plug in and PLAY! I saw them a couple of weeks back doing a similar set (at least to start with) but now after a few more gigs under their belts, they are much tighter, much more intense, or so more Six By Seven than before. Add a wizzo laser display above their heads and you can see they mean business. Their songs are dark and intense on record, and live, that intensity seems to increase with the volume. Not only that, on stage they really ROCK!!! They mainly play their more rock-oriented songs tonight and the crowd loves it. For me, they are one of those bands that I cannot understand why they are not HUGELY successful, as I think they really are one of the best acts around at the moment, both on stage and on record.
DaveM
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