SATURDAY, March 15th - Limelight2, Ormeau Avenue, Belfast: timeline 5pm to 9pm. Schedule: punk, rock, alt and metal. All served with panache, passion and pride, and a pity that more were not there to revel in it all.
The Organ Grinders, A Little Bitter, and all the way from France, 7 Weeks, provided the entertainment at The Distortion Project's RockD.
And, apart from a sparse audience, this was a triple serving of joy, precision and musicianship.
Kicking off with a high energy version of The Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop the Organ Grinders proceeded with an old school punk energy. The Clash were featured heavily in the set, with covers of Complete Control, Should I Stay or Should I Go, White Man in the Palais and English Civil War among those on parade.
Apart from a slightly mangled version of Inflammable Material the highlights of the set were an Outcasts cover and their own composition, Mr Sheen. Playing more of their original material could see The Organ Grinders push their punk rock groove to further heights.
Saturday was the long overdue return of A Little Bitter to Belfast. Replete with song tweaks and slight re-arrangements this was a six-song tour de force: Genghis, Constantly Raining, Dark Tide, Further I Crawl are on record great songs; live they live and grow.
Song writing subtleties, sheer live excellence, and searing musicianship from Jonny, Seamus and Darren are the key to A Little Bitter and they are much under-rated given their excellent take on hard rock, metal and well-crafted music.
To be honest there were few in the audience who would be familiar with 7 Weeks, apart from some online listens and Youtube views most there didn't know what to expect. But what a set!
Power, progressive metal, alt metal and stoner moods wrapped it all up in a glorious set - which featured an impressive display of musicians exchanging instruments, and delivering an intense set.
Ostensibly, Julien Bernard is the bassist and lead vocalist, but for two songs he took over lead and rhythm guitar parts, while keyboardist Manu Costa took over bass roles, while still delivering programmed sounds and samples. Equally, Nicolas Airgot switched roles in the performance.
Only drummer Jeremy Cantin-Gaucher didn't switch instruments...
What 7 Weeks proved once again is that music transcends national borders and borders within genres that can restrict bands: there were songs to headbang to, and there was moods to brood with.
Despite the short duration of this set - and Irish tour - one would hope that 7 Weeks will return again.
The only dampener on the evening was the lack of audience: with Overkill playing in Dublin, several other events and the whole St Patrick's Day rigmarole may have had some role in this, but for £6 measly quid we would have hoped that more would have made the effort.
For those that did it was a superb evening of punk, hard rock and metal entertainment.
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1 comment:
Great review of a fantastic evening. Worth £6 and a shame there were only a few to watch it.
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