Band:
Base Venue:
Tut n Shive, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK Date:
10 March 2001
Tonight is special! It's the Newcastle debut of North East 5 piece Base.
Promising a 'hot metal love in', how could anyone want to miss it?
The band play a mixture of rap-metal, as currently seen in the pop charts,
and a lot of heavier stuff, that would scare the baseball caps off a lot
of kids heads if it happened to appear in the top 10.
On first seeing the band, you would be hard pushed to think they were
going to play such angry music! I was lucky enough to be in when they
played their sound check. This was 'Headup' by Deftones. Considering this
was a sound check, the song sounded just like the Deftones! If this gave a
taste of things to come then the expectant crowd were in for a treat
tonight!
The first thing that strikes you is the transformation! From a bunch of
friendly lads to a bunch of complete lunatics, ok, so maybe the band
stayed friendly, but it was frontman Bish who would send priests scurrying
for their exorcism kits.
From the first chords of the first song, he went crazy, throwing himself
to the ground, exorcising personal demons like a man possessed with those
very same demons!!
The room was small, but this did not deter him from launching himself out
into the crowd like a hate fuelled rocket. All this physical activity and
he never missed a line! (of a song:))
On drums and keeping the band together was a blur of blonde hair known as
Grim, on guitar and sporting a Kiss Army T-Shirt was Davi J, (after
overcoming a few technical problems the riffs came thick and fast), on
Bass and grinning all night was Shaun, and featuring a natty line in head
gear was Clampy who provided vocals along with Bish.
We were treated to storming renditions of 'nu-metal' classics such as 'Nookie',
'Faith' and 'Break Stuff', by Limp
Bizkit, an experimental and very
successful airing of 'One Step Closer', by current chart darlings Linkin
Park.
Essentially they are a cover band, and a damn fine one at that, but for me
the real treat was a song of their own. "What You gonna do", brings
something new to nu-metal, something sadly missing from the down-tuned
chords of bands in this genre. That thing is a very fine, funky almost
bluesy riff!
This riff digs into your mind and stays there! Mixing RATM style dynamics
with funky riffs, what more could you ask for!
They're playing in Newcastle again on April 6th at the Tap n Spile, make
sure you're there, we will be!
Setlist included:
Sugar (System of a Down)
Nookie, Break Stuff, Faith (Limp Bizkit)
Headup, be quiet and drive (Deftones)
Bulls on parade, freedom (Rage against the machine)
One Step Closer (Linkin Park)
Baby one more time (Britney Spears) - yes really!!
Freak on a Leash, Blind (Korn)
