Oceansize – Barfly, Cambridge, 15/10/07

The rejuvenation of the Graduate Barfly continues with one of the great post-rock-metal bands of the past decade coming to town. The first oddity of the night is seeing a tour bus, whether it’s the bands or not was never fully discovered, completely decorated in an advert for Guitar Hero II. From it’s bowels a cable ran mysteriously into the venue and then disappeared. Perhaps it was some fantastic fuel for Oceansize, a means to power their rock antics for the evening… We’ll never know.

It was early doors tonight, Oceansize apparently wanting to play a long set. So The Caterwaul started to a sparse crowd. Though that didn’t seem to dull their set. It’s become obvious, recently at least, that laptops are now cheaper than drummers. All beats, kicks and bangs were provided by a laptop squirreled away behind the band. Laptop Punk I think I’ll call it. They were very raw, young but dressed for the part with tight black jeans, Sex Pistols t-shirts and “3 minute disposable pop songs” to play. There’s definitely something there, but more gigs and more practice will iron them out.

Still time to squeeze another band in, so Sion were next on the bill. A bit more straightforward than the previous act, their Emo styling’s akin to Funeral For A Friend or Hell Is For Heroes. Dressed sharply in matching all black trousers and tops, their lead singer possessed the rare skill of performance. He twitched, twisted and twirled through each of their high octane blasts of emo-rock. Nothing exactly new or fresh, but it was carried off with plenty of killer riffs and a lot of loud fun.

After that warm-up the crowd, which had slowly filled the venue, were ready for the main course. And they didn’t disappoint. Loud flashes of riffs pierced the evening, their sound tight and focused whilst each of the guitars was easily picked out from the mass of music. Their quiet moments of solace and reflection giving brief respite form the noise until another charged attack on your aural defences. Surprisingly, lead singer Mike Vennart was full of chat and banter. After someone shouted a request that was rebuked with a curt “No”, he mentioned they were going to play Brian May’s “Too Much Love Will Kill You”, his no ironic tribute to Freddie Mercury. To which the crowd responded with equal measures of laughter and nervous looks. “15 years since that song and it still gets a laugh” said Vennart. I guess; if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

The highlight of their long, but focused, set was “One Out of None”. The rip-roaring intro to their fantastic Music For Nurses EP, its thunderous riff ripping through and destroying everything before it – brilliant. We also get the prog-ish “Only Twin” which delicately weaves it’s way through multiple guitar parts that rise and fall, enthralling the listener. The set nicely covers material from throughout their back catalogue from Effloresce right through to the most recent Frames. It’s great to witness a band that literally loves to play live, so much so that they ask the promoter to open up the venue early so they can play an elongated set.

As I write this, the day after, my hearing is slightly dulled from the evening. However, having followed their career from their debut, it was great to finally catch them live and bare witness to their harmonic, yet monstrous, wall of noise in the flesh.

Links
Oceansize [official site] [myspace] [frames review]
Photos [valerio berdini]