It’s all very well being a best-kept secret, but you’d have thought that by now SIX BY SEVEN would have nudged into the wider public consciousness by perseverance alone. However, a succession of vanishing band members and record labels have contrived to rob the band of any momentum they accrued, and with tonight’s gig finally taking place after various cancellations it’s all understandably taken its toll on their hardy fanbase, and the audience numbers just above the total of the sum contained in band’s name.
Having shed half of their members without replacement, a certain loss in their titanic sound might be expected, but there’s certainly no dropping in the volume. As the trio start up with the latest album 04’s untitled opener – a lovely, gently flowering thing on record – they abruptly transform it into a sandblasting wall of noise.
Still, as powerful as the sound they generate is, it certainly isn’t coming from the force of personality. Singer and guitarist Chris Olley projects an air of dishevelled gloom throughout, as though the audience had personally come round to his house and shaken him from a deep sleep in order to run through the set. Granted, this isn’t a band that have ever relied on ostentatious personality or such media-friendly gimmickry to succeed, but when they possess a song as gorgeous and uplifting as "Bochum (Light Up My Life)", to see Olley deliver it with the passion of someone rewiring a plug is more than a little disappointing.
|
Tonight’s set relies mainly on their more recent, work, slower and more melodic than of old, and consequently at their most animated the audience sway gently like kelp forests in a mildly becalmed sea, while the sole visible activity on stage comes from drummer Chris Davis’ flailing arms.
They depart the stage after a mere hour of hugely forceful music, leaving an audience feeling happy, but a little teased and far from satisfied.
In one sense it’s what everyone expected, as Six By Seven have long based their reputations on a world-weary surliness and dogged lack of compromise, but their last album was great and their public still clearly care - but with their careers seemingly in permanent crisis, it’d be nice if the band occasionally at least looked as though they cared as well.
|
