Wreck + Red Mar + Goldblume + Swing and a Miss
This gig really showed off the diversity and capability of Norwich bands for riotous attitude. With excellent support from Goldblume and Swing and a Miss, it was a robust noise-filled evening, everything from the precise angularity of Red Mar, driving rock of Goldblume to the snarling sleaze rock of Wreck. As with all great live music, predictability was left by the wayside.
Swing and a Miss opened the evening, with a mid-y telephone effect vocal, driving bass and drums. They keep things straight forward and stripped back, evoking a few pop-punk sounds and attitude, yet still retaining a degree of sweetness. They set the atmosphere for the evening well.
With rock ‘n’ roll at their heart, Goldblume make their intentions clear. The lethal roar of guitar, mixed with occasional bluesy licks creates a curious blend with similarities to Royal Blood, or even Wolfmother at times.
Having travelled all the way up from Cambridge, they seem giddy on the notion of Norwich, the room slowly filling up as the set draws on. The percussive work is great to watch, and they’re an incredibly tight and well-rehearsed group, their nerves seeming to not have an affect at all on the performance. They’re loud and raucous and excellent musicians.
Following on from Goldblume is Red Mar. Only relatively recently coming to the fore in Norwich, their precise and piercing noise-rock has seemingly created enough to get a good turnout.
While demonstrating tightly wound math-rock progressions, it lacks the clinical, antiseptic quality usually associated with the genre. The musical gear shifts are stirring and disorientating, wrestling performative control from the audience, teasing them authoritatively with peaks and troughs.
With the organ humming and droning in the background alongside the piercing shrieks of guitar it places them at a curious junction of noise, goth-rock and post-punk, with sounds reminiscent of the Birthday Party and Slint, or even some Siouxsie at their more melodic. Throughout the evening they showed themselves to be some of the most technically able musicians on the bill, their well-rehearsed repertoire easily winning the crowd over. With a heaving pit of punters occupying the floor by the end of their 45-minute set.
Consecrating the evening, Wreck enter to an enthusiastic and well-warmed crowd. Eager pogoers exciting the centre within the first song. After taking a relative break from performance, they’ve returned with the addition of saxophone, which flatteringly compliments and juxtaposes Diego’s preacher howl.
The floor rumbles throughout their performance, crowd surging and heaving. With sounds of bluesy punk rock, alike to Gallon Drunk, or the speed fiend guitar work of the Stooges. They also don’t shy away from the sludgy repetitions of the VU. With a cover of ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’, they elevate the song to a frenetic bombast, the speed pushing the percussion to a peak. Diego commits himself fully to his role, fist wound tightly around a bottle of Jack Daniels.
This gig really showed off the diversity and capability of Norwich bands for riotous attitude. With excellent support from Goldblume and Swing and a Miss, it was a robust noise-filled evening, everything from the precise angularity of Red Mar, driving rock of Goldblume to the snarling sleaze rock of Wreck. As with all great live music, predictability was left by the wayside.
