Rattlesnake Remedy, Sacred Mother Tongue, Fifth Quarter, Ruby Shoes - 6th April 2007
Reviewed by Tracey Minutillo
First up on this night packed with music were The Ruby Shoes. This was the first performance I've seen with their new drummer, whose name I couldn't find anywhere on their MySpace page, so my apologies, Mr. Drummer, for not mentioning you by name if you happen to read or get wind of this review.
Despite some early technical difficulties with Cris's (though his name is Riley on his personal MySpace page) bass which made him lose time and his flow, and some problems with lead singer Matt's microphone, which didn't want to stay put, these guys played a solid and fun set.
I'm used to seeing the boys full of energy from their first song, but everyone except the new drummer seemed a little subdued and did not appear to start enjoying themselves until a few songs in when Cris/Riley's problem was sorted. After that it was all systems go for the full 'Shoes experience. The introduction of the new drummer has injected the boys' songs with a whole new lease of life which, I noticed, encouraged some nice improvisation from guitarist Adam in their song 'Prince Charming'.
Personally, I thought this was an entertaining show, and their glam rock music may well be, to partially quote one of their songs, 'the sweetest thing you'll ever get stuck on'.
Next up was The Fifth Quarter and I was totally blown away by just how talented these boys are. They are all studying at Music College so it's no wonder they were so technically accurate, from Ben Poole's crying guitar right down to Marc Golding's perfect drum dynamics. Their music was very bluesy with a Led Zeppelin influence and the drumming often taking a jazz tilt.
The bass player, Jonny Chase, is a classic rock and blues bassist: he kept his playing constant and unfussy for the majority of the time. The lead guitar spiralled in some intricate solos, the drums were allowed to shine but they were anchored by the rhythmic bass. Jonny did throw in the occasional flare, but he mostly remained the stabilising force.
The Fifth Quarter are still a relatively new band with roughly half their set being made of original material and the rest comprising of covers including songs by Gary Moore and a spectacular Jimi Hendrix finale.
Sacred Mother Tongue, the third band to take the stage, were apparently a last-minute addition to the line-up and the singer admitted they were put on the wrong bill. Their music appeared to me to be a fusion of hard rock, late 80s technical metal, brutal metal, with the odd cheeky funk bass pattern sometimes thrown in, so they were much heavier than the rest of the groups on the night. That said, they were very professional and what they do, they do extremely well.
All too often when a band decides to play metal music the vocals are dominated by incoherent screaming. This was not the case with Sacred Mother Tongue. Their vocalist (again, I had difficulty finding names) demonstrated throughout the set that he can actually sing as well as scream from deep within his throat. He had a strong voice and he recognised when to pare it back to achieve the greatest effect. In fact, the band as a whole knew when to be full-on and when to back off with some songs being quite in-your-face and others, such as 'Down' being mellower and reminiscent of Metallica's 'Nothing Else Matters'.
Headlining the evening was Rattlesnake Remedy. Lead singer, Lee Stone, has a voice that sometimes sounded like Steven Tyler and at others more like Axl Rose, though when he spoke he had a Brummie accent more like that of Ozzy Osbourne.
The band's songs are quite typical of the sleaze rock genre with sex being the main subject of many. I found the material quite generic and unremarkable though it was played and sung well. The lead guitar was a little over-indulgent: it was evident that Ben Bartlett is a skilled guitarist but his playing was over-complicated and sometimes pushed the rest of the band slightly out of time as well as overshadowing them.
Rattlesnake Remedy's set was at least twenty minutes too long and some of their songs seemed more like 'filler' tracks and did not hold my attention. Maybe they can afford to play such an extended set to their home crowd where they are well-known and loved, but I thought their performance dragged and I just wanted it to be over.