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Three young men from Baltimore arrive with a drum kit placed very close to the front of the stage, fronted by two wooden black boxes. They are dressed in orange trousers with yellow t-shirts, and the two guitarists (no bass action here) have identical Kramer aluminum necked instruments that are set-up for wireless operation. After about five seconds of frantic drumming and guitar thrashing, the two guitarists are wandering around the stage, sneaking behind the drummer, jumping between the boxes, and generally making the most of the wireless environment. In between songs Chris Freeland (the drummer) comes forward to the microphone at the front of the stage to chat with the audience, whilst Nat Fowler and Marc Miller tune their guitars. The crowd is very, very noisy and up for action tonight, and he has difficulty talking against the commotion from the crowd. Then it's back to the relentless noise core action that is Oxes. Both guitarists make the most of the fact that there are not any leads to restrain them, and happily stroll into the crowd and the backstage area at will. Nat contorts his face into all sorts of expressions, wanders into the crowd on his knees, dribbles onto his guitar and is generally the comedy person. Marc meanwhile takes drinks glasses from people, has a drag of a punters cigarette, and has generally more one-to-one interaction with the people he selects (mostly girls naturally). Even Chris doesn't get left out of the fun. He grabs the snare drum and wanders into the crowd chatting to people and looking for drinks. I must admit that a lot of the songs seemed to sound the same, but who really cares? It was sort of old style heavy metal riffs but more punchy and more in the Shellac vain. This is certainly not a bad thing, and they managed to meld that tricky line between art and music, and everyone was entertained to the max. At the end of the set Chris simply threw himself into the crowd and was carried aloft peoples heads all around the room. There was then much smashing of glasses from the crowd for some reason. (Maybe this is how the Birmingham punters show their appreciation - I don't know). I do know however that it was a great night, with a great crowd and a fantastic band. Lasting impressions have been made. skippy |