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With the year
almost at a close there is just time to squeeze in a few more gigs before
the end of the year.
Tonight we came to check out another up
and coming young band Get Vegas who were part of a three-band show at
Stockton’s Georgian Theatre.
The three bands on tonight’s bill all
have different sounds and different ways of bringing their music across
non more so that headliners The 15 Minute Society but more of that later,
first up were another bunch of young hopefuls named The Ghost Cats, who
delivered a sound that can only be described as surf rock, a sort of mix
between the Ramones and the Beach Boys. A strange sort of mix you
might say but it worked rather well.
With notable songs like ‘The Sixties
Dirge’, ‘Out Tonight’ and my personal favourite of the night ‘Intro Outro’,
all worthy of a listen and in the right environment would go down well.
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The main reason for taking the trip
down to Stockton tonight was to check out hometown band Get Vegas, who
are another young band which unlike most other young bands around
today, refuse to be drawn into playing what is the 'now' music scene
and rely more on the classic rock sound that made this countries music
scene so great in the late 70’s and early 80’s. This band
deliver rock as it was meant to be, melodic, tuneful and memorable,
none of this fifteen minute of fame for these guys, they are here for
the long haul.
This band are in a totally different
class from the first band playing here tonight. They have grown
in stature and their stage craft has vastly improved since the first
time I saw them earlier this year at this very venue. Especially
vocalist Jonny Cole who has grown into on hell of a front man and the
inclusion of new guitar player Ritchie has really brought the band on. |
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The band opened up their set with ‘Colour
of My Sky’ and straight away they won the respect of the crowd, many whom
I suspect had come only to see them, such is their popularity around
Stockton.
The set continued with the excellent
up-tempo rocker ‘My Rock n Roll’ before slowing things down just a touch
with the expressive tones of ‘Burning Soul’.
After a quick plug for the bands website
it was back to the rock with the excellent ‘Hard Lovin’. The band
also showed they have a talent for the more bluesy rock with song like
‘What Did Your Mother Tell You’ and new song ‘Sweet Honey’, both of which
gave guitarist Ritchie a chance to shine as he just ripped it up with some
excellent slide guitar.
The band finished things off with an
excellent cover of Free’s ‘Wishing Well’. This is the second time in
two days that I've witnessed a young band end their set with this classic
song and it's great to see young bands putting their own spin on a classic
and doing it so well.
The band really impressed me once again
and with Jonny they have a gold mine in his vocal talent. Ritchie
seems to bring a new confidence to the band and complements the with the
backbone rhythm section of bassist Adam Laing and drummer Martin Saint to
perfection. This band has it all and hopefully all their hard work
over the past year will bring fruit in 2007.
Now for the final band tonight The
Fifteen
Minutes Society. Led by vocalist Mr Pop, who was joined by Mr Furry
and Mr Owen on guitars, and on bass guitar complete with the biggest Afro
seen on a white guy since 1974, we had Mr Ad.
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The band can only described as Electro
Art Goth who came on stage full of angst and delivered a fast a furious
set of 3 minute mayhem moments well just five songs in fact (do the
maths 5 songs X 3 minutes = 15 minutes get it!!!). The band ripped through
the set and most of the stage in those fifteen minutes, they came, we saw,
they conquered and all in the blink of an eye.
This band will surely get a lot of media
attention, whether the fifteen minute thing will catch on or if fame takes
it hold on the band maybe we will see The Thirty Minutes Society, or heaven
forbid The Forty Five Minutes Society, we will have to wait and see.
All in all they are worth checking out if
they are at a venue near you and you have a spare quarter of an hour to
spare.
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