A small night at Mercury
It’s been a while since I have gone to see some unknown bands, and even longer since I’ve been to watch a band whose parents are in the audience*. Both happened last weekend at Mercury.
I wanted to go to check out Clint from work’s band, Stonecollar. They were supposed to start at 9.30, and we got there about 9.40, assuming that they would start late. Bizarrely, they had started early and we just caught the last song. It was good – a face melting guitar solo featured. I would like to have heard more, but there’s always a next time.
Next up was When Karma Sleeps, a six-piece Linkin Parkesque (according to Simon) rap-rock band headed by the love child of Barack Obama and Theo Walcott, and this chick. Awesome. They launched their music video (you can check it out on YouTube – called Anything). And one of the guitarists, who Simon said looks like Brandon Routh but reminded me of someone else, took off his top.
He was really wild, and looked like he was going to either hit someone over the head with his guitar or fall down. He did neither.
We were standing next to a more … mature lady in the crowd, who really seemed to be into it. Like, really. Eventually one of the guys in front of us turned to her and asked, ‘So you’re a big fan?’ ‘The drummer’s my son!’ she yelled back. That was when it hit me that although she was a bit adult for Mercury, she didn’t look that much older than me, and yet she had a kid old enough to be in a band. Frightening.
When Karma Sleeps were a bit too serious for me though. All wearing black. And they committed the cardinal sin of not only singing clichés at me, but using a cliché as their chorus. ‘Anything you can do, I can do better’, they alternately warbled and shouted. If I were to be brutally honest I would say the lady singer’s warbling could perhaps do with some fine-tuning.
But I watched them through, because I was enjoying their energy. It took me back to a time when I was young and had energy.
They reminded me of a Christian band, really. All that positive energy. It’s weird. – Simon
Last up was Saintfearless, apparently written all as one word. These guys started out really strongly, with some fun nu age rock ’n’ roll, but kind of lost us on the ballads and I had to go and sit down.
They also wanted the crowd to help them out with this one song (lazy, as David Brent would say) by going ‘oh, oh, oh, oh oh-oh’ to a tune which, to me, sounded very, very Dirty Skirtsish.
It was pretty awesome when the Beck-lookalike lead singer did some shirtless press-ups, and the guitarist put his foot on his back. That was funny.
You can check a video for Tango Tango on their Facebook page.
So that was that. It was great to go and check out some younger, unestablished bands again. That used to be the Armchair’s job, but of course.
After that we had a bit of a dance at the Lounge downstairs, and then went to Evol, which was probably a mistake. They were playing some real kak music. I wonder what it was.
Tonight I’m going to check out Lark at Assembly, so that should be really good.
*The last time was an early Beams show at Mercury. Probably 2007. I turned around, and standing against the wall at the back was Helen Zille, with no bodyguards or what-what. Pretty cool. Her son is the lead singer, you see.
