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Echelon Blue/The Eighth/Omar's Silver Lightship/Progress To Order/Fosta

Exeter Cavern - 3/5/04

I apologise for my cruelty in advance...

Echelon Blue then. Oh dear. I'd like to make it clear now that I'm cutting them a bit of slack because their drummer ran away at the start of the week (causing them to go badly out of time on occasion) and I liked the use of shoe strings to make a guitar strap, but as soon as they started playing I felt slightly embarassed. You know those dreadful heavy metal ballads you hear sometimes? They opened with one of those on an acoustic guitar, played badly, sung worse. The lead guitarist had a modest amount of technical talent but was almost enitirely drowned out by the acoustic. They played very bad cover versions, sort of defying the point of Singles Club really, which made me laugh, though I doubt that was the intention. To top it all off they then played Stairway to Heaven, a song I hate with a passion. And if that wasn't bad enough he was reading the lyrics off of a piece of paper on the floor. Like I said, oh dear.
2 out of 10



When the next band, The Eighth, started playing I immediately thought; "System of a Down rip offs", but at least they were doing it quite well. Until the vocalist came in,it was definitely a case of someone shouting because they couldn't sing or scream properly. A bit of a shame really. As was the fact that half way through I got bored and started thinking about girls instead. This happens quite a lot actually, partly because I'm male and we really don't think about much else, and partly because I'm an audiophile (I get off on music, hence the heavy breathing and ecstatic sighing on occasion) so if the music's not doing it for me I have to look elsewhere. It was just sub standard nu metal when you get right down to it. And an annoying reliance on one annoying guitar effect. Annoying. I think I know the problem with most local bands now though, singers are hard to come by. They're like magical donuts sprinkled in gold dust, very rare.
4 out of 10



That's where Omar's Silver Lightship go right, they don't have a singer, and so should it be as they would need a really good one to do justice to the funky spacey slabs of rock music they dole out on a regular basis. As soon as they started playing Two Dollars to Tell Me Off there was an exodus from the bar area and the dance floor magically filled, even if there wasn't too much dancing. There is definitely a lot of appeal in their music. It fuels the cerebral demands of your brain by being suitably complicated post rock while keeping your feet happy by being very danceable at the same time. Part way through Oliver (guitar) broke a couple of strings and the song had to finish early but Pete (bass) did a good job of entertaining the audience during this unexpected interval (including an impromptu performance of a Streets song) and all was well. Ginger's Dead, the last song, was slightly spoiled by a fat guy doing a pervy dance but hey, that's showbiz for you. Omar's Sliver Lightship are really very good, catch them while you can because university next year will seriously limit their performing opportunities.
8 out of 10




Back down to Earth though with Progress To Order who played quite typical punk music. Again the vocals hardly set the night on fire, though the guitarist, who took over for one song, was slightly better but still not great. There was potential there, they could be good given enough time, effort and practice, but right now I wouldn't write home about them. I wouldn't even know what to write home about them, there's really nothing to say other than turn up at any little gig somewhere in the country and listen to that punk band who are first on, hear that? That's what Progress To Order sound like. I wouldn't be surprised if they won though, they seemed to have the biggest crowd with them.
5 out of 10


Last on was Fosta. I'd heard they sounded a bit like Muse but at first I had no idea why, the music really was nothing like Muse at all. The levels were a bit messed up though and this is what had thrown me, when I got into it I realised it was the vocal style which was Bellamy-esque, and quite impressive really. So I guess you could say that Fosta are a bit like Muse if Muse listened to indie and not prog rock, as the music itself was far more your usual punk/indie fare, though different enough to stand out from the crowd. They put on a very good visual show too with the bassist throwing himself all over the place and the guitarist having a decent stage prescence (and a cool tie), so a band worth checking out, especially if the sound levels are better next time.
7 out of 10