venta

Once again, I'm back from Whitby goth weekend. I seem to have managed to do even less of significance than ever this time: talked to some people and listened to some bands. Which was all rather nice, actually. WGW contains some lovely people whom I only see twice a year.

Razorblade Kisses
Actually, I have no idea. I was busy eating the highly confusing Chicken Mackoni as served by the Indian-in-the-station. Why is it confusing ? The menu describes it as a chicken dish with a buttery, creamy sauce... and doesn't mention the cheese. Not paneer, either, but full-blown red-Leicester-orange-coloured real cheese. It's nice and everything, but that's the second time the cheese has surprised me.

Disclaimer: because I am a good little gig-goer who wishes to remain a gig-goer, I wear ear plugs at loud gigs. This year someone doing the sound in the Spa had turned the wick way up until the bass was performing impromptu tonsilectomies on those in the front row. The net result was a strangely muffled effect where, for once, I felt I was missing stuff by wearing earplugs. So it could be that my judgement was not up to my usual Solomon-like standards.

D.U.S.T
Microphone angle: Highly variable, the full 0°-180° range[*].
Drums? Yes.
Comedy cover: No

I'd been really looking to seeing DUST. Having risen, fallen, changed their name to something stupid, changed it back and returned from the dead, I thought they might still be on form. Sadly, not. It looked optimistic. Someone had suggested they were now down to a duo, having had their guitarist eaten by Manuskript, but then five whole people came on stage. One of them even looked set to hit things with sticks.

Sadly, it was all a bit lacklustre. The new material wasn't all that interesting, and the old songs seemed to have lost their go. Even Mikey's former ability to convince everyone else that he was, in fact, performing to a screaming stadium audience of thousands seems to have deserted him. Which is a shame, because he used to be a great frontman - I first saw them bottom-of-the-bill at an all-dayer in a scummy venue in East Reading, playing to a wholly disinterested crowd until Mikey's blatant presumption turned the punters into fans. However, on Friday it all just fell a bit flat.

The Sohodolls
Microphone angle: A government-approved 120°
Drums? No.
Comedy cover: No

I listened to the free download and free streaming clips from the Sohodolls website before I went away, and thought "meh". Female vocals, bleepy backing, been there, refused to buy overpriced shirt.

Which just shows how much I know, because they were great. Female vocals over a much heavier sound than the website suggested; nice bass but still quite poppy. And actually not that bleepy.

I still refused to buy a t-shirt, but I did shell out £2 for two 7" singles. Despite the singer telling me one of them was rubbish.

And the singer's really cute, though a bit careless with her underwear. She'd forgotten it and had to improvise with gaffer tape.

The Last Dance
Microphone angle: An ambivalent 105°
Drums? Yes, and proud of it.
Comedy cover: Not sure - they introduced something as if it were a cover, but I didn't recognise it.

I don't quite get the Last Dance. They sound ok, but they sound a bit like every other band that sounds like that. Despite being very determinedly a guitar-and-drums band they still get consistently filed in my head under electropop. I don't know why. You should probably ignore everything I say and go and have a listen.

Having a sore back towards the end of the set, I wandered off to sit down and I have to concede I dozed off. Despite proximity of unholy bass racket. So I missed Screaming Banshee Aircrew guy popping onstage for a duet.

However... The Last Dance do get bonus points for being very friendly chaps happy to mill about and talk to punters. And for getting into the titting-about-on-stage spirit and providing a good imitation of the Crüxshadows using only a pineapple and a microphone.

Rome Burns
Microphone angle: A genteel and decorous 150°
Drums? No.
Comedy cover: Two! White Town's Your Woman and David Bowie's Hallo Spaceboy

Even without the expectation-exceeding two covers, I love Rome Burns. I've not seen them in years - in which time the line-up's changed - and they're still great. Bonus points to them for acquiring a fan (alledgedly borrowed from The Last Dance) so that

daevid's hair could flip artistically in the breeze while on stage.

Rome Burns have cheesy backing tapes, a singer with a missed vocation as a lounge-room crooner and no sense of shame at all. If they'd just get a real drummer they could be my favourite band ever. I did go so far as to buy a t-shirt, which I have to say is a lovely bit of design; no idea what the text on it means - opinion seems to be that it's Simon trying to sound clever.

Machinegun Symphony
Microphone angle: An MC-tastic 70°
Drums? No.
Comedy cover: Depeche Mode's Enjoy The Silence

Machinegun Symphony are stompy goth electro, and no mistake. Fun to dance to, though possibly no individual song would stick in your head. I really enjoyed their set, though not quite enough to go and buy an album, because I fear it might have got quite samey. Give them a listen, though.

They'd melded seemlessly with the recurring Whitby zeitgeist by having technical problems (apparently their 110V American CD player was acting up) and I have to say they handled it with better grace and humour than pretty much any band I've seen on stage before. They had to abandon their 'big single' because the backing tape was leaping about, and managed to do it with a grin. And the bass player had a nice jumper on.

Bella Morte
Microphone angle: A teasing 85°
Drums? Yes.
Comedy cover: Yes, something apparently called Love Angel, though I don' t know it.

davefish played me a couple of Bella Morte tracks during the day on Saturday, and I thought it was all bit nu-metal. Their opening track was very nu-metal, and not in a good way. Still, they get their statutory three songs to impress me... which was a good thing, because by the second track I was quite enjoying them. Really energetic, stompy, metally sort of stuff with an actual (whisper it) sense of humour.

Most noteworthy was the... er... keyboard player. Or guitarist. Various online sources suggest he was playing a keytar. That is, a keyboard which slings round the neck gutair-style and has in place of a finger board some buttons which, er, do something. I couldn't quite work out what. I have to say, it's quite the most ludicrously camp instrument I've ever seen and yet the guy in question managed to pull it off and even look vaguely mean.

Crüxshadows
Microphone angle: Shocking attempt to subvert the system by using a headset
Drums? No
Comedy cover: Absolutely not.

My description of the Crüxshadows before I went away was that musically they're pretty unoriginal, but they put on a good show. Actually, I think that was a bit unfair, because they're a slightly unusual mixture of synths and electric violin. However, they do put on a show with synchronised dancers and a singer who has to wear lights on his arms so the sound man can work out where he's got to. I don't know much about violins, but I suspect their violinist of actually being quite good, too.

However, boy do they take the business seriously. Oh yes. Not a snigger, not a hint of titting about. Which is a shame.

[*] Just to be clear, microphone angle is measured according to ISO standard stage technology rules. 0° is a microphone held vertically, business end down. 180° is vertical, business end up. 90° is held to be genre-neutral.