Pylon were originally supposed to be playing this gig but unfortunately had to pull out due to their drummer breaking his wrist! A bit of a shame as I really love Pylon. Nick and Jo were also over from San Francisco and they’ve never seen Pylon before so they were disappointed. Still, Blocko were playing which meant it would still be a good night.

I got to Quinns about 6 for the traditional pre-gig piss-up. Usually I’m the first one there by a long way but I was surprised tonight to already find Lloyd, Mates, Mike, Steve, Nick, Jo and a friend of Steve’s I didn’t know… I ordered myself a Heffeweissen and had an enjoyable couple of hours in the pub. Stokes turned up after a while with a young lady who had “PORN STAR” written on her shirt. Good work Stokes! Dan Heap and Chris Cut also came along, as did Gabriella and her boyfriend (I’m assuming!) and Bob and Kath (who are now together it seems – good work Bob! ;-) and the ubiquitous Williams boys. Pete proceeded to annoy the fuck out of me and I ended up punching him at one point haha… One thing to note is that the young lady working behind the bar is very pretty indeed hehe :-)

I didn’t end up in the Verge until it was approaching 9pm and so missed the first act, Prague. Apparently this was just one man and a guitar and according to someone on the Fracture forum today he’s never sung live or played guitar in his life before! All very strange. Anyway, as I said, I missed him so there you go! The first band I saw was Cape Canaveral.. basically they’re an indie rock band with moments of Buffalo Tom and many more moments of generic sensitive emo rock ;-) They weren’t very memorable to me at all to be perfectly honest and I remember hardly anything of their songs. They weren’t bad but I very much doubt they will ever set the world alight. Bands like this are a dime a dozen nowadays and it takes something very special to separate one particular band from the pack. Unfortunately, Cape Canaveral will remain part of that pack.

Blocko were next up and it was at this point that I realised that Nick and Jo hadn’t even come to the gig. I’m still trying to figure that one out now even as I’m writing this…Bit of a shame that as I don’t see Blocko playing out in the States for some time to come yet! ;) Oh well, Blocko – you know what they’re like. You’ve probably seen them yourself by now. Tonight they were very loud and very melodic. The sound was a bit ropey though so you couldn’t really hear the guitar clearly.. it just sounded like one big rumble. But WHAT a rumble! A great set tonight with a couple of new songs thrown in for good measure – including the fantastic “Dry Sky”. This was only the third time I’d heard it and I’d probably rate as their best song at this point. It also marks a slight departure away from the straight Hooton 3 Car approach that seems to have been employed on a lot of the earlier songs. Fantastic stuff – I was also happy to see that Wager had been dropped from the set. Not that it’s a bad song but I’ve just heard it a thousand times now – I think they’d played it at just about every single gig. The Opinion joke is also getting a bit stale.. but hey, that’s just my opinion. (sorry ;-) That’s just a minor quibble though and overall it was a very enjoyable set.

Favez from Switzerland were tonight’s headliners. I’d never heard of them before this gig and really didn’t stick around for much of this set. From the few songs that I heard they had an enthusiastic, rocking, slightly Flight and a Crash era Hot Water Music thing going on. I should have stayed for more really but I was knackered and drunk (predictably) and wanted to get home… one to check out at another time.

Overall, another enjoyable night for the most part. I’ve no idea when the next gig is – hopefully soon!!!

--Chris