Live
So, it's the last issue of term, you're up for the holidays and looking for more ways to avoid work... here, have a gig guide! Don't say we never do anything for you. First up is the return of Reef, in a two-night extravaganza this Friday and Saturday at the Zodiac. If you don't fancy an evening or two with the country bumpkins, head over to the Wheatsheaf on Saturday for the Battle Of The Bands final. Will Malkovich win again? Oh no, wait...
The Club That Cannot Be Named has a couple of rockin' gigs coming up. If you're not one of the lucky ones to have tickets for Finch or Pitchshifter's last ever tour (sob!), you could check out Something Corporate's, er, corporate whoring.
Over at Brookes SU on Tuesday 18 there's an altogether different proposition in the shape of Ladytron (unfortunately are playing the same night as Blofeld over at the Zodiac) bringing their brand of trumpet-fuelled garage rock. Support comes from indie upstarts Cartel.
Back on the local front, The Rock Of Travolta make an appearance at the Wheatsheaf on Friday 21, plus there's The Young Knives supporting The Bandits at the Zodiac on Thursday 10 April. Don't miss them before they're too big to play here anymore.
Other highlights include the digi-punk fury of The Mad Capsule Markets at TCTCBN on Saturday 22, followed the next weekend by the awesome Winnebago Deal. Less awesome by this critic's tastes is Wheatus upstairs on Monday 31, but hey, if that's your bag, Brendan B. is back in town. We should probably mention Daniel Bedingfield at the Apollo on Wednesday 9, too. You gotta get thru it. Towards the end of the vac there's the return of One Minute Silence on Sunday 13 April, surely one of this country's best live acts, followed on Thursday 17 by emo-pop-punkers The Movielife in a rare UK appearance. And you simply must make sure you make it to The Wildhearts on Monday of 0th Week, in a warm-up gig for their forthcoming tour with Amen. Sod collections!
So with all that, the Oxford Punt next term, and the imminent arrival of the sonic terrorism that is Mogwai, you're pretty much sorted... rock!
Try as the organisers might to provide a diverse lineup of bands for each heat of the Battle, sometimes working round the individual schedules of the bands involved can lead to themes developing, and tonight is quite obviously the heat of ROCK. Following on from Big Thursday's thirty-minute demonstration of How To Rock last week, tonight sees three of Oxford's rock, punk-rock, and nu-metal bands competing for a place in the final. The audience ought to have brought earplugs, since the evening begins with Kids Who Tell On Other Kids Are Dead Kids (KWTOOKADK, as nobody is ever going to call them), who turn everything up to eleven and then give the dial a good twist just to see if it goes any further. As an example of their dedication to tonight's cause of ROCK: it's impossible to hear the vocals because they refused to turn their guitars down. The spirit of punk is alive and well, and mirrored by the music - it's songs like these that make you question the necessity of more than three chords.
They start with a track that sounds like it could have been a lost hit of the Foo Fighters, and go on to explore the back catalogues of NOFX, RATM and Hundred Reasons. Yes, perhaps they're a little derivative, but frankly they're so energetic and frenetic that nobody gives a damn. Big Thursday are spotted in the moshpit halfway through, so that's their seal of approval. The only criticism it's possible to make is that all the songs are twice as long as they should be - only 6 in half an hour? Any decent punk band ought to be able to manage at least fifteen.
However, Kids won the judges' approval, whereas the next band, Kookee, have them running for the corners, there to sit weeping as the slap bass resounds around the room. Someone more cruel than me said they were 'like Linkin Park, only instead of the pin-up frontman they've got a fat bastard in a beanie', and they break a guitar string halfway through the set and use this as an excuse to inflict a cover of Foxy Lady on us. To be fair, All About Me is an undiscovered anthem, and will one day be a hit on US alt-rock radio, but the rest of it is pointless nu-metal noodling or slow songs that sound a bit like Nickelback (a crime for which hanging is the only solution).
Set To Stun, thankfully, can save us from this torture; they're an established and competent band who've been gigging for some months and building up a devoted following. They play a confident if rather uninspiring set of radio-friendly tunes, and prove impossible to categorise other than as 'rock', so, since nobody can name an obvious influence, the judges settle for awarding them points for originality. This week's decision is a tough one; the judges debate hotly for several minutes while the crowd bays for someone, anyone, to come back on stage. Eventually, Kids Who Tell On Other Kids Are Dead Kids are declared to be this week's winners, and will be seen in Saturday's final.
27th Feb 2003