Style 43

@BRISTOL LOUISIANA.

As I entered the room I stood around waiting for the first band, Hearts Under Fire. After a minute or so the sound guy played a piano interlude.

As soon as I started to think it was going to be an absolute sop fest, four girls bounded onto the stage and the guitarist strummed a single chord ,it rung out then another one came, and another, then the song “Spitting Glass” kicked in.

Imagine a girl version of Rise Against or Ignite, which I think is awesomely impressive for a four piece all girl band, they had all the classic formula for the perfect pop/punk/hardcore band.

They were fiesty, clear and it was melodic whilst being straight to the point. Fast, energy fuelled, fun music!

The Computers arrived on stage I realised they were all wearing the same thing.
A red shirt, white skinny jeans and white tennis sneakers. They started the set, the first song was a mixture of cool, fast picky riffs almost like the Gallows, as soon as the vocalist opened his mouth and started screaming, the first thing that came to my head was ”He sounds like a small possesed child”.

Disobeying the music that the band were creating, he screamed his head off, what he was saying was beyond me. At the chorus some of the crowd started to shout along looking fairly enthusiastic and enjoying the set.

As they continued I found myself bored, amidst a sea of wierd looking kids who seemed to be enjoying it all. One thing I can say is that these guys knew how to have fun, you could see it burning in their eyes as the desperation to please the crowd grew.

The set came to an end and my last thoughts on The Computers was that they knew what they wanted from their music, they had their own sound and enough of that musical flame burning inside them to maybe someday make it onto the front cover of NME. Other than that they were pretty mediocre in terms of songs. -They all pretty much sounded the same.

Just before the main band, Gay For Johnny Depp, took to the stage I looked around the room. It was suprisingly full for The Louisiana, which has passed its hayday in terms of packed out shows with kids going nuts to every single band. I felt alienated, something really gay was about to happen, an eerie intro was played through the P.A system, it kept saying the world is over getting faster and faster until it was merely jibberish with a pounding bassline.

Marty Leopard took to the stage and I saw he was wearing a Priest’s outfit and was holding a cucumber. He knelt on the floor swaying with the cucumber, as the first song kicked in he stood up and smashed the cucumber on the stage.

All I can describe about this bands live sound is manic noise accompanied by wailing vocals. Marty threw a pint all over the crowd, they broke out into a push pit. This new genre noisecore stuff must have an effect on all these people. As Marty pranced around on stage shouting obsceneties to the music and making sexual gestures, I thought “Are these guys for real?”.

No sooner had it started that the first song had ended, the band took a break talking about having sex with people and just generally acting up on stage. The second song was much like the first, Marty jumped off the stage swarming around the crowd and eventually fell to the floor screaming his head off, it seemed as though the whole rooms eyes were fixed on him, just staring and some heads nodding. There was some strange shit going on at this gig. Kids were holding hands and dancing in circles like hippies, then it broke out into a manic mosh pit. I hadn’t seen anything like this at The Loui like this in ages!

As they came to their last song, Marty stripped down to his boxers and began running around, jumping on tables, towards the end he grabbed a young fan, pulled him onto the stage, straddled him and started screaming in his face, then looked like he was having sex with him, it was odd. Gay For Johnny Depp have so much energy on stage but I can’t really comment much about how great their music is, there are no real tunes and nothing at all that night made me feel that i liked the band.

Photography by Nathan Hicks
Review by Tom.