We arrived in the venue about halfway through openers POISON THE WELL's set, due to a sacking off of the ridiculously long queue in the rain in favour of a pint in the Scream pub down the road (this was one of the highlights of the night, as Swansea has a distinct absence of Scream pubs, compared to the five in Leicester. If you don't have any idea what I'm on about, you really are missing out).
To put it mildly, I've never really 'got into' Poison The Well, after giving them a few listens a good five or so years back, when other bands who I loved at the time, such as Thrice, and indeed, Thursday, were very much associated with them. I always thought them a bit overly brash and noisy, lacking the intelligence of the aforementioned other bands.
At this point it's worth noting the age of the three bands playing tonight. Both PTW and Thursday have been going since 1997, while Rise Against released their first effort in 2001, showing that this is a bill full of seasoned vets in an often disposable genre. Not that you would know by the age of the tonight's audience, averaging at 16, and making me feel rather passed it.
So to get back on track, despite PTW not really 'doing it for me' on record,from what I saw, they played a strong, competent set that the fans among the audience (all twenty or so of them) seemed to enjoy, full of chugging riffs, deep throated screams and the occasional piece of melodic singalongs. (3/5)
Second on tonight's stage were the band I'd been waiting for over five years to see. It was at Leeds Festival 2004 that I last saw THURSDAY, just after the release of their third album War All the Time, and I thought they were amazing. However, they played very low on the bill on the main stage, and I felt a lot of their sound was lost on such a big, open air venue. Therefore, I was incredibly excited to see them in a much smaller venue, playing to what I thought would be a group of hard-core, loyal fans, in a situation where they could really communicate the intensity of their music to the room. This was a band who'd released one of THE defining albums of the emo/screamo/whateverthefuckyouwanttocallit genre, with their second album Full Collapse, an album that I recently placed second on my top 50 albums of the decade. When I first heard Full Collapse it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before. There were melodic, emotional vocals and clean, intricate guitars interspersed with blood-curdling screams and massive down-tuned riffs - a formula now so commonly employed by a million other bands of a much lower quality that my amazement at hearing it for the first time must seem almost ridiculous.
Therefore as the house lights dim before the band take to the stage I am brimming with excitement and expecting the rest of the room to be in a similar state. So imagine my disappointment as Thursday burst into their first track, with the pounding opening of 'The Other Side of The Crash/ Over and Out (of Control)', and look around the room to see a bunch of blank faces barely tapping a foot. I was expecting the floor to explode, but bar a few odd arms in the air, the sea of heads could be barely seen to ripple.
This was not to discredit the band whatsoever. They were on top form tonight, far tighter than I'd seen them before and the sound was absolutely fucking massive. Thursday have this excellent ability to combine bludgeoning heavy riffs with almost orchestral elements to create a completely epic and often haunting sound, and this was working to a tee tonight. The set comprised of old and new, blasting out hits such as 'Paris In Flames', 'Understanding in a Car Crash', 'At This Velocity' and 'Division Street' - disappointingly the only track they played off of War All the Time. It was during some of these songs that I really wished the crowd were more into it, and it was evident that frontman Geoff Rickley was expecting more of them too, pointing the mic out to a room full of people that didn't know the words. 'Divison Street' calls for a gang scream of "I drew an' X' on your city's name" and the epic countdown to midnight in set-finisher 'Jet Black New Year' was lost on this crowd. It was only when Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath joined Rickley to sing vocals for 'Resuscitation of a Dead Man' - a song he helped the band write for their latest record, Common Existence - that the crowd seemed to warm up at all.
To sum up Thursday's set, they sounded brilliant, and all of the band seemed to be having a great time, especially the overtly-camp Rickley, who leaped and bounded around the stage like Adam Lazarra and Bambi's bestial lovechild. I thoroughly enjoyed the set, but I just wished that these kids knew what they were watching, and had given the time to perhaps listen to this excellent band before the show. That said, I don't know if many of them would have 'got it' even if they had given Thursday an hour of their time on Spotify, with so many more accessible bands doing the same thing these days. Thursday require much more concentration and intelligence to really get the most out of them, something which is probably lost on today's young 'emo' audience. (4/5)
RISE AGAINST, in a lesser way than with Poison The Well, were always one of those bands I was aware of, but could never quite get excited about. I'd heard a couple of songs, a few of which I'd absolutely loved, but on further inspection found their albums a bit boring and samey. But at tonight's gig, I don't think there would have been many people who shared my apathy towards the band, as it was clear who everyone was here to see. The kind of electricity I was expecting pre-Thursday's set was definitely alive as the lights dimmed to signal Rise Against's arrival on the stage. As they dived straight into opener 'Collapse (Post-Amerika)' the entire floor went crazy and a good 75% of the room was singing along with every single word. Up until this point I'd never realised how strong a following Rise Against had, and if they didn't then every Rise Against fan in the world must have been in the Welsh capital tonight, because the place was full of them. The band ripped through singalongs 'Paper Wings', 'Savior' and 'State of the Union', before quietening it down during the encore with McIlrath coming on alone to do the beautiful 'Swing Life Away' acoustic, before being joined by guitarist Zach Blair for the overtly political anthem 'Hero of War'.
There's no doubt that Rise Against are a political band, and at points their performance almost hit preachy, with McIlrath enciting the audience to raise their fists chanting "Rise!", but overall they let their lyrics do the talking. Also as an ageing band I feel the way they have matured and stuck to their guns has actually worked, when other bands have seriously failed. I saw Anti-Flag a few weeks ago, who came across as washed up old punks trying to repackage their simplistic anti-authoritarian beliefs for the Hot Topic generation, where it continually lacks relevence, and after tonight's show I think maybe they should go to Rise Against for some pointers on how it should be done.
As a non-fan of the band, some of the songs did seem to merge with one another, as this is not a group based on musical merit or complex musicianship, and as a genre as a whole, this kind of pop-punk or melodic hardcore has its limits, but looking around the venue, knowing that other people were enjoying it so much did raise my opinions of the performance and the band generally. And despite the earlier observation on the age of the audience, there were people from all walks of life getting involved, with a few wrinkly punks raising their fists and yelling along with McIlrath, creating a real sense of family among the fans.
On top of this, tonight's show was the last date of the current tour, and all of the bands noted what an amazing time they'd been having and what great people they were sharing the stage with. Now I know almost every band say this on tour, but tonight I got a real sense of sincerity, with stage invasions during every band's set from the other bands and their crews - there was just a genuine feeling of comradery among them that made you feel warm inside. (4/5)
So although a little disappointed with the reaction to Thursday and my main motivation for venturing out on this treacherous Welsh winter night, I wasn't let down musically, and was even pleasantly surprised when it came to watching two bands that I really couldn't get overly excited about before.
Sorry for the essay, I kind of get carried away writing about this sort of thing.
Oh and one last thing, if you haven't already....
LISTEN TO FULL COLLAPSE BY THURSDAY!!!!
Catch you on the flipside...
Catch you on the flipside...
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