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).
Gigs are great, most of the time, so to commemorate such events I have decided to create a blog dedicated to the reviews I write. Most are sent and uploaded to GrapeVineLive.co.uk, under the reader's reviews but there may be one or two that don't make it. All reviews are the opinion of me, Ryan, and therefore probably mean nothing in the greater scheme of things, Be excellent to each other, Ryan
Showing posts with label Underworld. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Underworld. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 January 2013
Jettblack @ The Underworld Camden
I ended up being a bit later than I wanted to be for this one, so I missed the support, but Grapevinelive liked this review enough to post it on their site.
Written by Ryan Whitwell
First things first, due to whatever reason, I managed to miss the first support act of the evening (Sondura) and only saw a smidgen of the second band's set (The Mercy House), so I can't really go into detail about them or their music. But seeing as they were supporting the brilliant Jettblack, they must be good.
High Wycombe's heavy metalers, Jettblack, played Camden's Underworld as part of their first headline tour (not including the co-headline gigs they did with Heaven's Basement a couple of years ago). The main support were a band called Night by Night, whom I had never heard of until tonight but they did intrigue me.
Night by Night had a bit of a following with a fair number of the crowd singing along and raising hands, but I had my 'gig review' hat on and as soon as they began to play I tried to sum them up in a way that would describe them well to somebody that hasn't heard of them... I failed at that, coming up with the idea that they are musically a little bit like Fallout Boy or maybe Avenged Sevenfold but with the vocals of Backstreet Boys, which sounds like a terrible band description but Night by Night are actually quite impressive. I have only seen them live this one time and am yet to listen to any recorded stuff, but I'd say they are very much vocally led. Some great guitar solos and the lead singer was brilliant but what impressed me more was the harmonies from both the bassist and one of the guitarists (Night by Night are a 5 piece), harmonies that were so pitch perfect I almost wondered if they had pre-recorded it because that level of perfection is rare even for some of the bigger names.
Onto the headliners. I think the last time I saw Jettblack was at the same venue about two years ago with Heaven's Basement and Earth Prayer and I saw them at Ozzfest 2010, so it's fair to say I have faith in this band and I'd call myself a fan of theirs. Since I last saw them they have released their second album and are definitely progressing. A quick word about their second album (Raining Rock), in short I was a bit unsure of some of the tracks because lyrically a couple of the songs were a bit off putting, but the majority of the album was as good as (and sometimes better than) their excellent debut album. Fortunately, Jettblack's set was well thought out, they did the best possible thing and played the best tracks off of their latest offering and switched it up with the best their first album has to offer. Opening with the instrumental first track of their latest album and immediately setting the venue alight with the hard hitting 'Slip it on', one of the tracks that got me hooked on this band in the first place. The great tracks just kept on coming and with the venue jumping to the powerful 'Less Torque More Thrust' and 'Get Your Hands Dirty'. Even the slower ballads like 'Not Even Love' were greeted with a chorus of fans singing every word at full volume.
And the band seemed to be enjoying every second, the bassist especially had the cheesiest grin for most of the set as the crowd continued to make themselves known with plenty of movement and vocal encouragement, a sure sign that this band are worth investing your interest in. In my opinion, what makes or breaks a gig is the connection the band has with the crowd. When I saw Turbowolf a couple of weeks ago, they were on fire and the lead singer made sure we were all having a damn good time. Rival Sons, however, failed to connect, mostly because of their bizarre choice to play their entire new album note for note in the same order as the record but also because there wasn't much talking to the crowd. Jettblack were excellent entertainers, playing the best songs off of both albums and encouraging everybody to join in gave the whole gig a real collaborative vibe, as if we, the crowd, were being acknowledged as part of the band, because (as I've said before) a band without fans isn't a band at all and I think Jettblack displayed just how much they appreciate their fan base and I can't wait to hear more from them.
Friday 26th October 2012
Written by Ryan Whitwell
First things first, due to whatever reason, I managed to miss the first support act of the evening (Sondura) and only saw a smidgen of the second band's set (The Mercy House), so I can't really go into detail about them or their music. But seeing as they were supporting the brilliant Jettblack, they must be good.
High Wycombe's heavy metalers, Jettblack, played Camden's Underworld as part of their first headline tour (not including the co-headline gigs they did with Heaven's Basement a couple of years ago). The main support were a band called Night by Night, whom I had never heard of until tonight but they did intrigue me.
Night by Night had a bit of a following with a fair number of the crowd singing along and raising hands, but I had my 'gig review' hat on and as soon as they began to play I tried to sum them up in a way that would describe them well to somebody that hasn't heard of them... I failed at that, coming up with the idea that they are musically a little bit like Fallout Boy or maybe Avenged Sevenfold but with the vocals of Backstreet Boys, which sounds like a terrible band description but Night by Night are actually quite impressive. I have only seen them live this one time and am yet to listen to any recorded stuff, but I'd say they are very much vocally led. Some great guitar solos and the lead singer was brilliant but what impressed me more was the harmonies from both the bassist and one of the guitarists (Night by Night are a 5 piece), harmonies that were so pitch perfect I almost wondered if they had pre-recorded it because that level of perfection is rare even for some of the bigger names.
Onto the headliners. I think the last time I saw Jettblack was at the same venue about two years ago with Heaven's Basement and Earth Prayer and I saw them at Ozzfest 2010, so it's fair to say I have faith in this band and I'd call myself a fan of theirs. Since I last saw them they have released their second album and are definitely progressing. A quick word about their second album (Raining Rock), in short I was a bit unsure of some of the tracks because lyrically a couple of the songs were a bit off putting, but the majority of the album was as good as (and sometimes better than) their excellent debut album. Fortunately, Jettblack's set was well thought out, they did the best possible thing and played the best tracks off of their latest offering and switched it up with the best their first album has to offer. Opening with the instrumental first track of their latest album and immediately setting the venue alight with the hard hitting 'Slip it on', one of the tracks that got me hooked on this band in the first place. The great tracks just kept on coming and with the venue jumping to the powerful 'Less Torque More Thrust' and 'Get Your Hands Dirty'. Even the slower ballads like 'Not Even Love' were greeted with a chorus of fans singing every word at full volume.
And the band seemed to be enjoying every second, the bassist especially had the cheesiest grin for most of the set as the crowd continued to make themselves known with plenty of movement and vocal encouragement, a sure sign that this band are worth investing your interest in. In my opinion, what makes or breaks a gig is the connection the band has with the crowd. When I saw Turbowolf a couple of weeks ago, they were on fire and the lead singer made sure we were all having a damn good time. Rival Sons, however, failed to connect, mostly because of their bizarre choice to play their entire new album note for note in the same order as the record but also because there wasn't much talking to the crowd. Jettblack were excellent entertainers, playing the best songs off of both albums and encouraging everybody to join in gave the whole gig a real collaborative vibe, as if we, the crowd, were being acknowledged as part of the band, because (as I've said before) a band without fans isn't a band at all and I think Jettblack displayed just how much they appreciate their fan base and I can't wait to hear more from them.
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