We had to get to the Barfly rather early to get to see Bournemouth-based VOODOO VEGAS' first London show of 2013, ahead of the release of their album 'The Rise Of Jimmy Silver' which has already been featured on W&H though it isn't out until March.
By the time they came on at 7.45 there were about 20 of us in The Barfly as they opened with the full on blast of Mary Jane and they sounded super tight with great riffs and good interplay between Nick and Meryl: the two guitarists playing supercharged Biker Metal.
Lawrence, the band's singer did his best to get everyone going on the early shift before they started blasting away at us. King Without A Crown really stood out live and in the bst rock'n'roll tradition they sound better live than they do on the album as the energy levels coming off the stage never let up throughout a very tight and rehearsed set. Lost In Confusion seems to owe a bit of a debt to both Orange Goblin and Gillan, I thought.
So Unkind saw them really stepping on the gas and roaring the riff into our brains. It had a very cool solo from Meryl, which helped it along no end. They closed with the title track of the album by which time they had got everyone who was there going and got a real good round of applause at the end of the set. They really need to be seen live and there will be plenty of opportunity as they start to tour the album hopefully far and wide. They are a great live band who know how to work a room and deserve to be accepted on a wider scale.
We knew that WILD HONEY were going to be crap before they played a note when they spent longer putting up their backdrop than they did setting up the drums. They needn't have bothered as you couldn't see the backdrop anyway!!
Damn they were a bad 8th generation copy of Thin Lizzy meeting Nazareth and thinking they could be the new Free. I spent a good bit of the band's set trying to figure out which of the band's two rhythm guitarists was meant to be playing ead and when the numpty of a singer needlessly introduced the band, I'd got it wrong and the guy with the flashy moves was not the lead guitarist; it was actually the guy doing an impression of wallpaper . The bass player, meanwhile, seemed to be having some trouble keeping in time with the drummer which didn't help them at all.
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The one thing they had going for them was the line of young women who appeared just before they went on, who - when the singer announced they were playing a song called Bitch - tried to accuse each other of being the song's target!! He made them feel so loved that when he asked everyone to clap along no one did, not even any of the girls who I assumed must at the very least be going out with these guys!! They also didn't listen when the sound guy told them they had run out of time and insisted on another song that no one wanted to hear. Avoid Wild Honey they are very bad indeed.
Next on the bill were MY LITTLE EMPIRE who are an excellent high energy Indie rock band from Borehamwood. They started in a hail of feedbacking guitar squalls before making everyone smile again and they also had their own line up of fine young ladies, who unlike the Wild Honey ones got totally into the music and were dancing and clapping along when needed. The Reason was the first song of the set to remind me of Motorcycle Emptiness-era Manics. The bands' energy was infectious and both the Battle of Nowhere and Fever just raised the tempo and really got everyone going.
Current single Solitude went down well and they didn't need anyone dropping hints to let them know when to finish and leave us all wanting to hear more. An essential in any good band's armour.
We left after My Little Empire with another 4 bands still to play, but we'd had a good night and had seen two very good new bands and one total dog. Overally, a decent result really.
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