Sin City 13/07/19
Sin City should be a well known music venue to most of you, having been around for quite a few years now and putting on lots of gigs in that time accommodating touring bands and local bands alike on a regular basis, its a good venue both as a musician and a gig goer, although I’m sure they sneak a few extra steps in on the way to the top floor between each of my visits to the place, but hey, if thats my only complaint for the evening then it cant have been too bad a night now can it. The bar was pretty well stocked and reasonably priced so I armed myself with a nice cold beverage and waited for the fun to begin.
Kicking things of for the night was Olivia Kneath, a name I’d heard before but never caught live. It was a relatively gentle start to the evening with Olivia’s soft but tuneful voice and acoustic guitar being accompanied by a bassist and second guitarist (no drummer though) she’s got some catchy little tunes that I’d be intrigued to hear with a full band and a bit of a bigger sound, in my head with a bit more volume and energy it’d sound like some of those 90’s female fronted britpop bands. Olivia has catchy way of phrasing her vocals and melodies that reminded me a bit of bands like Sleeper or Echobelly, good catchy stuff, gentle happy sounding melodies with lyrics that contrast the upbeat melodies a bit and come across like she’s just telling some honest stories about her life, which is only a good thing.
Aiden Keryn carried on easing us in to the evenings entertainment next, I have caught her live a couple of times before and there’s definitely been an improvement in her performances over time, not that she was bad to start with mind, but of course the confidence that comes with just playing more gigs can never be underestimated. She’s a solo acoustic artist that since the last time I saw her has added a drum machine to the live mix which certainly takes thing up a notch in terms of giving her a bigger sound and adding more energy, not that she used it for every song mind and that was a good decision as it was and easy way to add some dynamics to the set as a whole. Now being a drummer myself I’m not a big fan of pre programmed drums and again would be interested to here some of this played with an actual band. I thought the songs with just vocals and acoustic guitar came across with a bit more feeling in them, but hey maybe I’m just against the machines doing me out of a job.
Motel Thieves were the first full band up of the night and instantly made me think of 90’s indie, they wouldnt have sounded out of place in The Zone on a saturday night for any of you old enough to get that reference. They go for a big indie sound thats definitely meant to have a good time to. Their singer has a decent voice but often had that feel of a sort of Sean Ryder / Ian Brown almost talk singing at points, these boys have definitely listened to some Stone Roses thats for sure, they seem to vary between them and sounding like Arctic Monkeys at points. They’re an energetic band who seem to be trying to write music people can have a dance to and the ever increasing crowd certainly seemed to enjoy them.
Al Moses Band were the penultimate band of the night, they describe themselves online as simply “rock n roll” and they certainly were noisier and louder than anyone else so far, still on the more Indie end of the rock scale they started of with plenty of energy and kept the energy levels up for the majority of their set. They make good use of dual vocals in the choruses which just makes everything sound more sing-a-long. I know I keep throwing 90’s references around but there’s part of these guys set that remind me of bands like Supergrass, its energetic, its fuzzed up guitars, it sounds like festival music that should be played in the sunshine and seemed to be going down a treat with the audience. These boys are here for a good time and they want you to have a good time with them, I’d invite them to my party.
Headliners for the evening Bandicoot take to the stage and the party definitely continues. Bandicoot have a knack of writing very lively energetic songs that are most definitely tunes you can dance to. They have a really good sense of groove and feel, its upbeat its fun and their live sound (at least tonight) is a lot more “rock” than they sound recorded. This is only about the third time I’ve seen them live, but every time they seem to put on a much better performance than the last. These guys have been gigging hard and it certainly shows. They sound very poppy at times especially when they hit some great really catchy choruses that I can imagine will only sound even better with a big festival crowd singing along to them one day. Most of what Bandicoot do is quite bouncy and upbeat, the kind of stuff thats hard not to move your feet to when they really hit their stride, but they do have the occasional “slower” more atmospheric moment with some nice builds and bigger sounding choruses, of course you can still have a good dance to them, after all that seems to be what these guys do best. These slower songs do provide them with the opportunity to work the dynamic of the songs even more, they know how to build a song up and then hit you with a dynamic drop thats just adds more impact to those choruses when the kick in. Its upbeat, party music you can have a good time to, with a little bit of an interesting twist to it thats hard to put your finger on, its different and is very much its own thing which is difficult to pull off these days. Good work boys, I shall definitely catch you again.
Overall that was a great night of music, apparently there was some gig on in singleton park tonight that attracted around 35,000 people. I’m sure a lot of them would have had a better night at sin city with me.
Find the bands online:
Bandicoot
Al Moses Band
Motel Thieves
Aiden Keryn
Olivia Kneath