| Thrice |
| with Alkaline Trio, Hot Water Music, The Nation Blue |
| 7/2/2003, The Corner, Melbourne. |
|
Was quite looking forward to this gig actually - had been listening to Thrice pretty much all week, gave Alkaline a bit of a spin, and wanted to understand why Paul liked HWM so much... so was going to be a fun (and long) night by most standards I figured.
Drove in with Dave and met Chris for a spot of dinner at the (most rocking) Vaucluse Hotel. Headed down to The Corner around 9pm to see the show, had to wait a (longer than usual) eternity in line to get in. Managed to get in pretty much smack bang on 9:30 to see Hot Water Music kick off their set...
Hot Water Music This band was really quite good. I'd only heard stuff from Paul before (and very limited at that), and whilst I had liked it, it hadn't shaken my world. So it was a pleasant surprise to really get into this band. The mix was spot-on and from the looks of things, they had the crowd pretty revved up for the night. We stood back towards the merch desk (of which their were a heap of decent t-shirts), with a pretty good view of the stage. Very nice guitar riff interplays, vocals weren't bad (if not a little too much of just the hardcore shouting action going on), but all in all a fine band to kick off the proceedings. Would see them again (for the right price) if they come back (which no doubt they will). Alkaline Trio Alkaline trio were on a scale of 1 to 10 about a 7 (i.e. definitely good, but not quite enough to get me to the "wow" or "great" factor). They played their songs well, their frontman had enough charisma to keep the crowd entertained, and they looked very nice in their suits. However, the vocals were a little raspy at times, and I honestly thought that their songs would pack a little more punch live, or maybe the tightness from their studio albums could translate well. So, not a bad listen, but from the list of 3 bands, they were probably the most lacklustre in my opinion. Played a good selection from the sounds of things (I only have the "Maybe I'll Catch Fire" and "Good Mourning" records). Thrice Thrice were the main act I shelled out my hard-earned money to see, so while I had been reasonably entertained by HWM and Alkaline, I really wanted to see what Thrice could do. And they didn't let me down. A lot of energy and an incredibly tight unit, this band really pulled out all stops to put on a good show. We were initially standing still near the merch, and the sound wasn't quite right - it almost sounded like everything was going through a chorus pedal... quite odd... but we headed over to the mixing desk where the sound proceeded to get better over the first few songs (I was a little surprised at this, given the spot-on mixes of Alkaline and HWM). Definite highlights of the set were the tracks from "The Artist In The Ambulance", including the title track, "Stare At The Sun" and "Under A Killing Moon" (which took on this really heavy life of it's own). Vocalist was in fine form (don't know how he manages to scream like that without doing some permanent damage) and the guitarist had a really killer lead tone. Big drum sound as well. As per usual, the drumming sounded great (I'm not sure why that is - drums always sound better at The Corner), and the drummer from Thrice was really giving the kit a workout. Thrice were definitely the "wow" factor for the night. They closed the show with a kick-ass version of "Cold Cash And Colder Hearts", and I left a very happy man :) |