Four Wheel Drive, Friday 8th February Railway, Ipswich

It’s been a while since I’ve been to Ipswich (bit strange for a Grapevine writer, I know) but at the Railway on Friday 8^th February a band I quite like were playing. The band was Four Wheel Drive (I’ve reviewed them before) and tonight they were playing a big set of loud covers and a few of their own tracks to a good crowd of rock fans.

I hadn’t been to the Railway before but it seems like a good live venue. The people watching the band on stage were a mix of all ages and, judging from the posters of upcoming events, the place is dedicated to bringing some good quality rock and roll to the people of Ipswich, which was probably one of the reasons the attendees were well up for Four Wheel Drive.

The first set was all covers, including a bit of AC/DC, Guns n’ Roses and Airbourne. No half measures and a fair bit of dancing in the crowd as the drinks flowed.

Plenty of jumping around from the guitarists and the crowd alike greeted the band as they began the second half after a short break. The second half had a few more covers as well as some of the band’s own stuff, including an extended version of High Roller, which I’d say was the highlight of the evening. Even a mistake with the intro to Thunderstruck didn’t stop the crowd from singing along anyway, it was that kind of atmosphere, everybody having a good knees up on a Friday night.

When seeing a band too often it can be hard to write an interesting review that doesn’t read like a copy of an older review, so I thought I’d add a footer to this review to keep things interesting…

On the following Sunday I (along with a lot of other people) was invited to help Four Wheel Drive film their latest video for the booze filled track ‘Hammered Again’. The idea was to get the band, some sexy ladies, beer, dancing, beer, something to do with policemen, more beer and more sexy ladies in The Big Red to make a big old drunken mess and have it filmed. Well, at least that’s what I think was the idea? There was a structure and a plot, but I wasn’t involved in that so I maintained the ‘drunken mess’ idea instead. Nobody seemed to worry about us drinking too much and having fizzy wine poured over our faces! It was great fun, met some great people and may have lost a great bit of dignity, but was it worth it? Well, we’ll find out when the video is released, although I may not want to let anybody at work find out about it!

No doubt the video will be posted on here at some point facebook.com/fourwheeldriverock or maybe here fourwheeldriverock.com

Guns2Roses @ Oxford Cafe, Bethune

Bethune is a town about an hour's drive from Calais. Myself and a good friend of mine took the ferry and rocked out en Francais!

Also posted on GrapevineLive.co.uk

Guns2Roses, Le Oxford Café, Bethune, France
Saturday 14th January

My buddy Arran and I embarked on probably the longest excursion I have ever taken with the soul intention of seeing a band. Across the channel and down the E15 for a bit is a town called Bethune that on Saturday night played host to Guns2Roses, Hole Xpander and Four Wheel Drive.

Le Oxford Café in Bethune is a pretty small venue, with wood panels on the wall and a Belgian beer called ‘Troll’ on the taps. There was also a refreshing disregard for the law as when we stepped into the place our clothes immediately smelled of cigarette smoke, yes there is a smoking ban in France, just nobody told these guys! It’s hard to remember the last time I came home with my jeans smelling like they'd been worn by Keith Richards. We also had a chance to test our French speaking skill, which ranged from ‘little’ to ‘none’ and it wasn't long before we were settled in to get some high voltage rock and roll, Français style!

First up were London lads Four Wheel Drive, the main reason for travelling to Béthune, and the first thing we noticed was the volume! Seems the environmental health were off Saturday night as the band damn near blew the windows out! Even though one of the four wheels couldn’t make it, the now Three Wheel Drive put out a massive sound and as far as I could tell the capacity crowd were well and truly up for it ! A great rendition of Highway to Hell saw any language barrier torn down as every voice in the building sang along and the band produced probably the loudest performance of their own song 'High Roller', setting the benchmark at a very high level. A great start to the party ! As Four Wheel Drive pointed out, we English fans (all two of us) had travelled a long way to be there and we were ready to have a good time, fortunately so was everybody else!

Next up were French outfit, Hole Xpander (Googleing that with safe search off might not be a such un bonne idée !) I was really impressed, plus it was their first proper gig and they had a great crowd behind them throughout. I couldn’t understand what they were singing about most of the time but it makes a change for me to listen to a band without paying attention to what is being said. Of course there was a chance to join in as the band performed my favourite Twisted Sister song, ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’, which set the bar alight! Twisted Sister are probably one of the bands that sprang to mind upon hearing Hole Xpander, there are also Judas Priest and lots of thrash elements in there. I’d had a chat with the drummer before the gig and the front man a bit later on, both really nice guys and both were keen to do some shows on the other side of The Channel with Four Wheel Drive, which I would be more than happy to see, honestly, if you speak the language or not these guys are well worth a listen.

By this point we had made a couple of nouveaux amis, including a guy that wanted to learn English and ended up exchanging email addresses with me to help him learn it because I is well good at talking English and stuff, innit! He’s helping me learn some French too, so it’s win win! A short break and with our vocal chords suitably warmed up and our glasses topped up with Troll beer it was time to really have some fun with Guns2Roses.

I like Guns n' Roses and Guns2Roses are probably the best chance I have of seeing G n’ R as they were in their late eighties/early nineties heyday. Featuring two members of Hole Xpander, the confidence, passion and great selection of tracks ensured our voices would be raw by night’s end (and they started on time). The band clearly love and respect Guns n’ Roses and after a quick Google it seems they are a highly acclaimed tribute band having played with members from the actual Guns n’ Roses. We spoke to the front man before the sound check and he told us they had just got back from India, playing to 10,000 people, soon they are going to California but at the moment they are playing some smaller gigs, stuff like that always makes me want to start a band. The setlist consisted of the obvious big hits like Paradise City, Sweet Child of Mine (which they restarted for reasons I am not sure of, maybe that’s the kind of thing the real Axl Rose would do) and You Could Be Mine. But the real treats were the lesser played GnR songs like My Michelle and a personal favourite Night Train. Each track was done as good as (if not better) than the originals and the crowd loved it, so much so that the landlord and a few other Frenchmen got up on stage with the band mid set! It was a crazy night with plenty of singing and air guitaring and it was nothing but a good time!

The Oxford was jumping until the early hours and then a bit longer and after exchanging ways to swear in each other’s language with some French blokes we went back to l’hotel, slept for not nearly long enough and then drove back home. I was more than a bit drained by the time I got back to North Essex, but all I can say after all that is ‘I’m going to venture to distant gigs more often’!

Four Wheel Drive play the Ipswich Railway on Friday 8th February, so all you hard rock fans should make a point of going there!- fourwheeldriverock.com

Hole Xpander – facebook.com/holexpander

Guns2Roses - http://www.guns2roses.co.uk/


Hole Xpander translated the bit about them to their native tongue after I shared it on their Facebook page... 

Juste après passait un groupe français, Hole Xpander (rechercher ce nom sur Google avec le filtre de recherche désactivé ne serait pas une si bonne idée !) J'étais vraiment impressionné, de plus qu'il s'agisait de leur premier concert. Il y avait une foule de monde pour eux tout le long . Je ne comprenais pas les paroles la plupart du temps mais ça me change d'écouter un groupe sans faire attention à ce qui est raconté. Il y avait bien sûr de grandes chances d'accrocher car le groupe a joué ma chanson préferée de Twisted Sister : "We're Not Gonna Take It", qui a mis le feu au bar ! Twisted Sister est certainement le groupe qui nous vient en premier à l'esprit en écoutant Hole Xpander, il y a aussi du Judas Priest et pas mal d'éléments du Thrash dans tout ça. J'ai parlé avec le batteur avant le concert et avec le chanteur un peu après ; les deux sont des gars vraiment sympas et ils aimeraient tous les deux jouer de l'autre côté de la Manche avec Four Wheel Drive. Je serais plus qu'heureux de voir ça, honnêtement. Que vous parlez leur langue ou non, ces mecs méritent vraiment qu'on écoute ce qu'ils font.

The Treatment @ Camden Underworld, London

Excellent show by The Treatment, this review was posted on Grapevine's website.

Written by Ryan Whitwell
Saturday 15th December 2012,
 
A mild winter's Saturday I had A quick potter around Camden market for Christmas presents. Oh yeah, I also saw one of the best heavy metal bands around at the moment in the form of The Treatment at Camden Underworld.

Curren kicked off an early start to procedings. Solid with plenty of American style rock about them. The early start of about 6.30 meant the crowd was a little on the thin side but that didn't dampen Curren's spirit and the lack of numbers held up pretty well when faced with some audience participation. The band have a great vibe about them, good upbeat band with a solid set including a cover of Bob Seger's 'Rosalie' which matched their style really well.

Next up on the four band roster were the brilliant Four Wheel Drive. The high rollers were on form once again to cement themselves as one of my favourite bands right now. This was my second Four Wheel Drive gig but this time the band were penned in to the confines of Underworld's stage, so no bar top guitar solos (although that didn't stop one guitarist walking through the crowd riffing like a boss).

I'm not sure why but I always gain an involuntary smile when I hear a Four Wheel Drive track, much like the one I get when AC/DC is played on the radio. I guess my subconscious is so happy this brilliant music exists that my frontal lobe can't hide it. The same thing happened during the headliner's set, but more about them after I mention the third band of the evening.

Vega are a band that I had not seen nor heard before and their style of theatrical vocals and keyboards immediately made me think of that other side of eighties rock. They felt a bit Bon Jovi/Billy Idol but with boyband-esque key changes and vocals. Definitely a vocally focused band and the guitarist from Night By Night was playing along on stage, which was a nice surprise because he is a good guitarist. As the set continued I couldn't shake the image of a an 'attitude' laden film from the mid-eighties where the hero would at some point ride a motorbike for an entire song (probably by Stan Bush) because he had to battle the bully in the big dance tournament to get the girl. It wasn't bad and there were plenty of established fans singing along as I think all of the songs featured  an opportunity to chant the word 'hey' or 'woah' in leu of an extended guitar solo.

After what seemed like an especially long time, The Treatment glided on stage and proceeded to blow the roof off The Underworld and the World's End above it!

If you haven't heard of these young guns from Cambridge then you owe it to yourself to get a dose of The Treatment (Sorry, I promise not to do anymore medical puns). Rounding up what has been an amazing year for the traditional heavy metallers, supporting the likes of Motley Crüe, Kiss and Thin Lizzy both here and in the US. The Treatment powered up their amps and turned everything up to 'awesome' to prescribe some more volts to an already electric Camden crowd (I promise that was the last medical pun).

Playing a bit of their 'This Might Hurt' album and a couple of newer tracks, The Treatment have clearly learned a lot from the masters they have recently supported. The crowd were up for it and all five band members knew it. plenty of fist pumping, arm waving and head banging was going on as the barrage of hard and fast metal blasted into the very core of our beings.

By the end of the set the room was so energetic that a stage invasion ensued as the smothered band played one of my favourites, 'Shake The Mountain', to top off a set full of hit and miss crowd surfing, studded leather jackets and guitar solos and the band just took it all in their stride as if they've been doing it for 50 years.

Ending with a great encore featuring a cover of Saxon's 'Motorcycle Man', the band managed to add themselves to my list of best live bands I've seen this year!

I cannot praise this band enough and sincerely hope they go on for a very long time as we may well be witnessing the start of something very special in a new wave of British heavy metal, and it's just what the doctor ordered (OK, that one was really bad).

Four Wheel Drive @ Big Red, Holloway Road

My first time seeing this excellent band, they pop up in a couple of future reviews and Grapevine posted this one on their site.

Saturday 1st December 2012
Written by Ryan Whitwell

The freezing temperatures around North London greeted me as I walked up Holloway Road to The Big Red for a free gig. Luckily they had some spiced rum and hot apple at the bar, so the cold went away pretty quickly and I soon realised that The Big Red could be my new favourite venue. It’s hard to describe but I liked the mis-matched American style décor, the lovely bar staff and the retro movie memorabilia, but I wasn't there to look at Russ Meyer posters, I was there to see some high voltage rock and roll!

My ear drums were suitably rattled by a new heroine of heavy metal, Mia Klose and her band. If I had to describe them in one word, that word would be ‘eighties’. I was mightily impressed with the Swedish lass’ impressive vocals and solid rock songs as the Motley Crüe and Scorpions influences shone through. The songs were well received but the real highlight for me was the amazing guitar work coming from the two guitarists on stage. I love a good guitar solo and these guys had plenty to offer, with some old rock and roll and blues riffs running through most of the set list it all added up to result in a great sound.

The headliners, Four Wheel Drive, managed to build on the excellent vibe around The Big Red by performing an amazing array of songs. They started the first half with a barrage of covers that often rivaled the quality of the original recordings. The likes of AC/DC, Led Zep, Airbourne, Aerosmith were all given the Four Wheel Drive treatment but supposedly unrehearsed version of Guns and Roses’ You Could Be Mine featuring Mia Klose and the bassist from her band was a highlight.

After a short break the four piece delivered a set of their own songs, mixing their new EP with tracks from their 2009 album (both available on iTunes). I hadn't really heard too many of their songs before, only the ones I had seen on my Facebook news feed from my mates, but as soon as I got home I immediately went to the iTunes store. There were echoes from the first half of the show as all those influences came together to create an amazing blend of classic rock and heavy metal. Each song was a driving rock and roll onslaught. The guitarists were on fire, opting to use their wireless guitar pick-ups to their full extent by wandering around the bar in the center of the venue and standing on tables to give everyone a good view of their nimble fingers dancing around the fret board.

There wasn't a bad moment in the set and I would gladly be quoted as saying these guys are one of the best bands I’ve seen in 2012 so far. So good in fact that I’m seeing them again on the 15th of December when they support Cambridge metal merchants The Treatment at Camden Underworld. I'll see you down the front!

Want some Four Wheel Drive? www.fourwheeldriverocks.com
Or a bit of Mia Klose? www.miaklose.com

Massive thanks to my buddy Arran for telling about the gig, well worth it!