When we arrived at The Cube on Friday night, the queue outside filled us with a sense of resignation. Even if they had tickets on the door, we wouldn't be able to get in anyway. Despite being old that they'd tell us when they ran out, and that there were a few tickets left, it wasn't until we got within earshot of the desk (actually inside the building) that we heard that there had never been any and they were just letting people in to drink. Not letting this deter us from seeing some form of live music that night, we went down to The Croft to see what was on. If anything I might find a band that I liked...
The Dirty Whites are a skinhead shouty punk band. While slightly entertaining and well-rehearsed, every time they started a song, we thought it was a cover of some old Clash tune or something. Not good. After a few songs the everyone shouting together got annoying, my eyes glazed over and I kept telling myself it would be alright, they're playing guitar solos at least. If you want to hear what punk sounded like when it was raw and slightly dangerous, they're worth it, but these days it all seems a bit tired. It just isn't enough to regurgitate this stuff anymore.
Now heading for something different, The Get Outs play better, more original sounding melodic punk rock, their singer has an almost Tim-from-the-Cardiacs singing style, and his eyebrows are a band member in their own right. Very good stuff, I thought. The Get Outs really showed the other two bands what originality and good songwriting is all about, three songs by The New Rhodes were enough to prove to me that I wouldn't be going near them again. Uninspired commercial sing-song sanitised punk. But that's just one muso's opinion. You are of course welcome to find out for yourself, if you insist! One for the kids I think.
