Wednesday 13/McQueen/The Poisoning
Glasgow garage 28/03/07

I arrived mid way through the Poisonings set and they were night and day from the last time that I'd seen them. These guys have blossomed into real contenders. Flashes of AFI were in there, but they most definitely have a firm grip on there own identity. To put it bluntly they've moved up from being a pub or club band to one that are ready to take the next step up to some higher profile gigs. A fairly large section of the young crowd were eating out of their hands, but whether that is to do with it being a home town show or if it is something they can carry over to a more partisan crowd is something that remains to be seen. If I was to look for any negative points it would be that as I couldn't hear the guy playing slap bass I'm not sure how necessary he is to the sound. Although he looked the part. The other would be that the guitarist may be able to play, but he is streets behind the rest of the band when it comes to stage presence. I've seen more animated corpses. If they are going to take a jump to a wider audience he really needs to work on it a bit more.

McQueen basically confirmed what I thought from listening to their album. They are sorely lacking in any identity. They sound like a covers band touching all the heavy metal bases. Terrible.

Wednesday 13 however road in to save the day. As usual he was the perfect showman and in fine voice to. His band aint no slouches either. Hopefully all the support bands hung around long enough to get a master class from an expert.
There was no fat to be trimmed from this performance. Most of both his solo albums were performed with a couple of oldies and one song that I didn't recognise at all. Hopefully though this one will indicate the direction he will be taking in the future as it was a personal highlight from an already excellent set for me.
I went to this with some trepidation as I was going on my own and I was almost certain that I would have been the oldest there. Any concerns were needless though as I most certainly wasn't the oldest and the crowd was on an ecstatic high from start to finish.

Mainy, El Diablo

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Trashlight Vision + In So Far + The Poisoning

for those of you who missed it...

"Glasgow barfly on a December Sunday night and to be honest I didn't want to be here. I felt old - so, so old. It's a 14 gig and just some nights the age you feel is the age your aching muscles feel no matter how young the lass standing next to you is...and I'm sore and still hungover from gods know what I did on Friday night. I'd rather a quiet rocking chair than the prospect of loud music tonight...

And I'm worried. The Poisoning are the first band and contrary to every other time I've seen them, they have no fake blood make-up and far fewer clothes on.
But this is The Poisoning, the band. And well, if you were right down the front you kinda missed half the performance. Some opening support bands will waste their energy on asking politely for the crowd to move forward a bit to create atmosphere. Not these guys, any space you leave them is soon filled: this band goes to the crowd. And I'm glad I had a buffer of young teenage girls in front of me - singers I can usually cope with but fuck me that guitarist has scary eyes when he wants and I don't have my camera to stare back with...!

During their third song tonight the person next to me turns round and announces "I have a new favourite band!", and aye, tonight they had me offering them my first born in praise & worship. I'm assured by folk who listen more than I do that they manage to play the goth horror punk style just as well as they pose to it.

Next up, In So Far inevitebly had to play the worst slot of the night, following such a great local opener but not being the known headline band will always be tricky. And that's what they managed to do, they played that fill in set, as much as I loved the lowest slung bass ever and the lead singer's enthusiasm, they never quite managed to win enough of the crowd to impress and my ears only heard some vaguely generic rock sounds, on another day I may have been easier to please, but not tonight. I went to the bar and I bought a drink.

Trashlight Vision did me kinda proud though, they managed to play almost a Stadium Rock show in exactly the sort of venue I remember that whole sound growing from. Probably very few folk there other than me & Acey Slade, who yeah, was acting just like he could have been headlining Donnigton in '91, nobody else would have understood if I'd said "a real original Cathouse show", sleaze rock, cock rock, whatever rock, even with the lack of pole dancers it still made me yearn for sleazy stripper infested dives that I've only seen in Crue videos. But I was happy enjoying the set as such - they even managed to play a Guns N' Roses cover without me being up in arms at the travesty of it all, there's not many bands I would forgive that liberty!

Trashlight could have won me over compeltely but then they started up with 1st Fright and well... I tried my best to jot down some sensible notes of what to tell you guys about the gig but when I look at them now all I see is an A4 piece of paper with "THE POISONING - stage invasion - WIN~!!" written on it.

In So Far did their best, Trashlight Vision played a fine headline set.

But The Poisoning - they won.


http://www.trashlightvision.com/
http://www.insofar.co.uk/
http://www.myspace.com/poisoning/
http://www.alternativenation.net/forums/poisoning/"

Review by "Woolies" for AlternativeNation.net

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The Priscillas, Thee Merry Widows, The Poisoning
Glasgow barfly, 28th February 2005

I rarely, if ever, write anything about the gigs I go to – usually because I find it tricky to say more than "good", "awright" or "crap". But I promised myself before going that I'd try and produce some words as well as pictures for this gig so here goes.

Three bands on the bill, with (as it turned out) fourteen performers. Not simply band members or even just musicians, but all performers, this bodes well for any live show and gave this gig that little something extra in the "you had to be there" stakes.

The Poisoning began with full-on energy from the very first scream – only the drummer remaining within the stage boundary for the full set. Entertaining as they are to watch parading, strutting, glowering and crawling about every available space, their playing easily kept pace, keeping the horror-punk blood & gore as a compliment to the music rather than a gimmick to keep you interested and hide dodgy tunes behind. I don't really care much that I never made out a word of lyric or know what any of the songs were about, such a fast, furious onslaught of 21st century punk doesn't need subtlety.

Thee Merry Widows followed and proved to be the best psychobilly band I have seen for far too many years. Even never having heard them before I'm sure I was (in my own way) singing along with more than one of the chorus harmonies. More than their share of hooks and a set filled with everything it should be, great rock 'n' roll rhythms with real punk guitars and enough '50s comic book horror glam and tattoo ink to satisfy anybody.

By the time The Priscillas came onstage the atmosphere around the place felt better than the vast majority of small venue shows I've seen in months – as their drummer remarked it felt like "there's two hundred people in here". I'm not sure if they were a '60s girl group turned nasty or a garage punk band turned glam but it worked for me again, with plenty of posing and posturing to keep the eyes as well as ears interested to the end.

In the end what counts is that on a dark & rainy Monday night in February I found myself walking up Buchanan Street singing "I fucked a zombie, and he's the best I ever had" and summarising the gig not as "awright", or "crap", not even as "good" but just thinking to myself "wow!"


spoilt-cat
AltNation.net