Ok so here goes another few days of me gloating about how good life is because iv’e wiped my arse onto XYZ a bands face. For me Life with a capital L has been very good because I am just about to start a work placement with an arts organisation called Art and Power. Its a great organisation that have really supported me over the past 6 or 7 years. So I celebrated starting the placement by going to see Liverpools indie electro pop band Outfit, who detailed their sound with layers of unashamed 70’s/80’s influences like Tears For Fears, Sparks and Art of Noise into a clever danceable hybrid. There was one moment where I did almost find myself singing Sparks Number 1 Song in Heaven

Wednesday saw me sprinting around Bristol like a headless chicken, first stop was the Louisiana for Blackpool’s much hyped Darlia. I know that anything that has the quote of the most exciting guitar band in Britain should be treated with a certain amount suspicion, especially when it comes from the tag line of Radio 1, a station that seems to think that emotionally androgynous bands like The 1975 are cutting edge and exciting, which they are most definitely not. But I personally cant really fault Darlia, because they do what they do really well, gave a very energetic performance which delivered with sense of professionalism with which giving the day they had had with being pulled over by the cops due to their tour van being over weight, problematic stuff that they could have done without. The trio didn’t re invent the musical wheel and they did at points make me feel nostalgic for Top Of The Pops mid nineties era, their first 3 songs were cracking. 

|support came from Chess clubs latest signings Sundara Karma, a band who had their moments but floated a tad bit close to Peace sounding way too clean and a bit too sterile despite having a great guitarist and one or two half decent moments, I did Cringe a bit.

After The Louie gig I sprinted like a headless chicken to catch one of the most exciting bands in Bristol right Now! I am talking about the creators of Howling Owl in the formation of truly great noise pop of Spectres, a band who are proceeding to get better with every show they play managing to sound like Slowdive’s long lost children absolutely ear burning shoegaze delivered with some real clarity and personality

Thursday saw me sat outside the Academy band stalking one of my teen ildols! Benji Webb, the front man of Britains premier cross over rock outfit Skindred. I personally will always love and remember Benji for being the front man of Dub War, a band that I listened too nearly religiously during my teenage years. With skindred I had been having an on off love affair with the band kind of following them for the best part of 10 years, and last night they were really on form, giving a big gun showing of massive lights and bouncing exploding bass lines and Benji really in fine form. They played quite a few songs from their debut album Babylon which came out way back in 2002 including Babylon, Pressure, Bruises, Set it Off and Nobody really brought back some memories of my early twenties. They were on the road promoting their latest Album Kill the Power, stuffed full of their Ragga metal.

Main support came from late nineties early 2000’s metalers Soil, who were responsible for the classic Halo, their set sounded tired and dated when compared to how metal music has moved on despite their singers enthusiasm. Although their bass player did enter the contest for coolest Bass player of the year with a little bass solo.

The most spectacular part of the evening was provided from the nights openers, Viza a band from LA who all have Persian eastern European family Backgrounds. They broke quite a few grounds in music with their instrumentation sitting somewhere between System Of A Down and Gogol Bordello, mixing high end rock theatrics Bulkan Folk elements. Their the first band Iv’e ever seen rock out with a Ute and their guitars were all set to alternative classical tunings, it was flipping unbelievable especially the fact that their singer could hit almost Mike Patten like notes, talk about value for money.