Alex Band Of The Calling, Psycho Village & Paul Bartolome, Sin City, Swansea
The things we do for love...10cc's big hit pretty much summed up this gig for me. This was penance I suppose as it was my other half (our talented photographer) that wanted to go to this gig due to her affinity with early Noughties music. Now I suppose I drag her to enough gigs featuring sweaty men in corpse paint that it was only right to make our way to Swansea for the second UK date of what was going to be a 52 date total tour!
First off let me say that we didn't see every band, that is because there were 4(!) support acts and a 6pm start, so there was no way we were going to make it from Cardiff for all of them. We managed to get into the room halfway through the first song of Paul Bartolome's (5) set. He was supported by two other musicians a drummer and guitarist/bassist as well as backing track. A yes the backing track, possibly the loudest one I've ever heard, it was actually painful though not as painful as Paul's strained vocals, at least he was a humble talking about having his mum and dad on the merch stall and joking about being professional in front of a particularly raucous, inebriated audience. The music was sort of latter day Linkin Park with the electronics doing more work than any of the live instrumentation. I mean there was even a rapped section from the drummer on one song. All a bit safe but the crowd lapped it up, probably due to the alcohol ingestion.
Still this was only support band 3 of four the forth were Austrian sleaze rockers Psycho Village (6), they gave a marginally better showing of themselves. Certainly one that were a little more polished having been in existence since 2013. The trio have been on tour since September of last year and it showed as they were slick and professional, they brought the crowd on side with their hard rock style but for me it fell a little flat due to sameness of it all. They were the only band who had played Swansea before with an unnamed artist where they were fired from the tour. This aside they showed themselves as an ideal support keeping the energy high.
Then the excitement was palpable the mostly female audience rushed the stage as the backing band came on to stage building up the opening chords of One By One then the man himself Alex Band of The Calling (7) came out to a huge scream and unleashed that smooth baritone like it was 2001 (though I'm aware this was from their 2004 album Two). It wasn't long before The Calling's world beating debut Camino Palmero was visited with Adrienne, Stigmatized and Could It Be Any Harder all eliciting big sing alongs resulting in a solo acoustic rendition of Things Will Go My Way. It wasn't all The Calling stuff though, a few songs from Band's solo album were played along with his song For You from the Daredevil soundtrack, Why Don't You & I his collaboration with Santana (special mention to his guitar player for the almost flawless Santana-like playing) and Tonight the song Band wrote for the World Cup performed by Shakira. These were well received but it was The Calling stuff that got the crowd moving, unfortunately due to time restraints Anything was cut as the encore the finale was 'that' song yes folks if you ever wanted to hear a room full of Jacks (people from Swansea) shouting along to Wherever You Will Go, the song that eased a million break ups, then this was your one and only chance. Band still has a great voice and he can write a anthemic song, there is also still a hunger for his music so I'm sure everyone in the room will be waiting for the new album due out this year.
As personal note, despite the supports, the main act himself was actually quite enjoyable. Konstantina? She bloody loved it, score some brownie points of me then!
The things we do for love...10cc's big hit pretty much summed up this gig for me. This was penance I suppose as it was my other half (our talented photographer) that wanted to go to this gig due to her affinity with early Noughties music. Now I suppose I drag her to enough gigs featuring sweaty men in corpse paint that it was only right to make our way to Swansea for the second UK date of what was going to be a 52 date total tour!
First off let me say that we didn't see every band, that is because there were 4(!) support acts and a 6pm start, so there was no way we were going to make it from Cardiff for all of them. We managed to get into the room halfway through the first song of Paul Bartolome's (5) set. He was supported by two other musicians a drummer and guitarist/bassist as well as backing track. A yes the backing track, possibly the loudest one I've ever heard, it was actually painful though not as painful as Paul's strained vocals, at least he was a humble talking about having his mum and dad on the merch stall and joking about being professional in front of a particularly raucous, inebriated audience. The music was sort of latter day Linkin Park with the electronics doing more work than any of the live instrumentation. I mean there was even a rapped section from the drummer on one song. All a bit safe but the crowd lapped it up, probably due to the alcohol ingestion.
Still this was only support band 3 of four the forth were Austrian sleaze rockers Psycho Village (6), they gave a marginally better showing of themselves. Certainly one that were a little more polished having been in existence since 2013. The trio have been on tour since September of last year and it showed as they were slick and professional, they brought the crowd on side with their hard rock style but for me it fell a little flat due to sameness of it all. They were the only band who had played Swansea before with an unnamed artist where they were fired from the tour. This aside they showed themselves as an ideal support keeping the energy high.
Then the excitement was palpable the mostly female audience rushed the stage as the backing band came on to stage building up the opening chords of One By One then the man himself Alex Band of The Calling (7) came out to a huge scream and unleashed that smooth baritone like it was 2001 (though I'm aware this was from their 2004 album Two). It wasn't long before The Calling's world beating debut Camino Palmero was visited with Adrienne, Stigmatized and Could It Be Any Harder all eliciting big sing alongs resulting in a solo acoustic rendition of Things Will Go My Way. It wasn't all The Calling stuff though, a few songs from Band's solo album were played along with his song For You from the Daredevil soundtrack, Why Don't You & I his collaboration with Santana (special mention to his guitar player for the almost flawless Santana-like playing) and Tonight the song Band wrote for the World Cup performed by Shakira. These were well received but it was The Calling stuff that got the crowd moving, unfortunately due to time restraints Anything was cut as the encore the finale was 'that' song yes folks if you ever wanted to hear a room full of Jacks (people from Swansea) shouting along to Wherever You Will Go, the song that eased a million break ups, then this was your one and only chance. Band still has a great voice and he can write a anthemic song, there is also still a hunger for his music so I'm sure everyone in the room will be waiting for the new album due out this year.
As personal note, despite the supports, the main act himself was actually quite enjoyable. Konstantina? She bloody loved it, score some brownie points of me then!