Allusondrugs / Scouts / Happy Accidents / Belladonnas [Live Review – The Boileroom, Guildford, 21/9/14]
Belladonnas
Given how inexperienced and nervous Belladonnas were, critically deconstructing this set and expecting it to meet professional-grade standards wouldn’t be fair. Although Belladonnas have some decent songs and got a good crowd response, more practice and gigging experience is definitely needed. Effective grunge sets always seem as if they’re on the verge of falling apart – but beneath it all is a solid core of highly experienced musicianship that enables the performers to find the right balance between rags and riches.
With time, I’m sure Belladonnas will find that balance too.
Happy Accidents
Melodic garage punk that could fit easily onto the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack. Rough edged pop songs with cool grooves and a decent if patchy vocal performance. Nothing massively original and more work needed, but well done and entertaining.
Scouts
A confused and scattered start, with focus gained after the first song but muddy sound and a lack of engaging crowd banter threatening to ruin any chance of connecting with the audience. Big respect for the no-holds-barred attitude and a few massively badass riffs toward the end, but on the whole it felt like the audience were politely tolerating this set, offering uncertain and tepid applause and not much else for all but the final song.
That said, Scouts’ closing feedback-soaked dirge-riff freakout (which was epic) did bring the audience to life; it’s just a shame that that level of engagement didn’t get going earlier on.
Allusondrugs
A note one winner. Vintage-modern grunge with a solid as fuck foundation; the bassist and drummer were a real highlight here. Add in a couple of talented guitarists and a fragile ragdoll frontman, and you have all the makings of a great rock show on your hands.
Awesome songs reminiscent of Reuben at their best in places, some harrowing yet hypnotic vocal performances, and TMI stage complaints (“This microphone smells like semen – seriously, it actually does”) ensured chills, thrills, and a happy and satisfied audience who swarmed to the merch table as soon as Allusondrugs’ last notes died away. For those of us who were there from the start, this set was worth the wait – and for the support acts, this was a demonstration of what will be theirs given enough time and woodshedding.
Big love as always to the Boileroom team for their second great post-licence-review show so far.
Links
Allusondrugs on Facebook and Twitter.
Scouts on Facebook.
Happy Accidents on Facebook.
Belladonnas on Facebook.
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