Back at Easter Jet asked her brother who he'd like to see live as he is now 32 and still hadn't been to a live concert! Owen replied that he'd like to see either Foo Fighters or Cypress
Hill, well about a week later tickets for this show went on sale and we called Owen's bluff and bought the tickets then they added Gallows to the bill and we were both feeling a lot better
about going to see Cypress Hill who although I've seen them twice before aren't exactly our bag.
So we met up with Owen and got into the academy in good time to see Gallows, whose own reaction to being offered this slot was to say yes, while being worried about how wrong they were for the show.
Well Frank and the boys didn't have to worry too much as once they came out and opened with a ferocious London Is The Reason that they morphed into Brixton is the Reason towards the end they had certainly brought smiles to some unlikely faces near to us who I would have thought would have hated Gallows, but then Frank's in between song banter got everyone laughing and Leeches
sounded good and nasty. I Dread The Night may have been how Gallows saw the gig but damn it was good, Misery does Love you, Frank but the song is great and your diving at the crowd worked wonders, there was no need to Abandon Ship as you sailed against the hip hop tide with your Hardcore punk winning over a good part of the packed house, even the almost proggy breakdown in the middle didn't seem to offend too much.
In the Belly Of The Shark is always a high spot in any Gallows set for me and tonight's version didn't dissappoint. I think Laurent did a great solo and looked almost demonic while playing it.Orchestra Of Wolves was used to bate the odd person giving them shit but as Frank couldn't get the crowd to boo him. They seem to win that battle and left us with a hardcore updating of
the old Bobby Fuller Four classic I Fought The Law that got most of the crowd singing along to the chorus. It was a good end to a tough support slot.
Then after far too long a break, during which at least one poor sod seemed to be having an OD Catastrophe and had to be helped out to get to security and medical help as he was out on his
feet and loads of people sparked up like the smoking ban didn't exist finally Cypress Hill came onto a stage bedecked in backdrops and posters of typical skulls and joints imagery and the new album Rise up's flag at the back of the stage.
They opened the set with Get Em Up and everyone was up for it,
pumping hands in the air like they just don't care, damn the place was up for it and Hand On The Pump seemed about right for the control. B-Real and Sen Dog had over the place. When the
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Shit goes down sounded really good with some very good percussion as well as the beats that kept coming good and fast from Julio G who these days has an Apple Mac to help him out on the decks.
There was much mock gun fighting for How Could I Just Kill A Man to which the only correct answer tonight it would seem would be
because your Latin Thugs which followed it, by this point there sound was getting a touch repetitive as most of the songs have a very similar sound but boy do they work it and when they got to there re-working of the old Dillinger classic Cocaine in My Brain that they do as Insane In The Brain they had the whole academy going Insane in the brain allright. I Wanna Get High then saw the band lighting up what for them are small joints compared to the old days when they would have the super joint on stage but still loads of people joined them and were more than able to prove that Stoned Is The Way Of The Walk especially if you've had a few too many Hits From The Bong.
Hmm, is there a theme going on here? Well yes and Dr Greenthumb continued it nicely and it was no suprise that they then had an instrumnental interlude where Julio G and Eric Bobo showed us what they were made of and at some point there special guest slipped onto the stage for the end of the set we had Young Dee throwing in some raps while they closed with Lick A Shot. They got an ovation at the end that really showed up how badly Hole performed here a month or so ago.
They came back for the title track of the new CD Rise Up that sounds pretty much like classic Cypress hill and finished a
great show with Rock Superstar that left just about everyone with a smile on the faces, well except the other poor sod we saw who could also have been od'ing and in a little bit of trouble.
On leaving it turned out that Owen had really enjoyed his first gig although Gallows are not for him and that was no surprise. Still at least we popped his gig-going cherry at last.
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