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Salt In Open Wounds/All About Adam/Vanilla Pod/Squirtgun
Exeter Cavern - 8/3/04
David reviews a great night of pop-punk at every ones favourite venue
First on was Salt In Open Wounds. The first
thing that I noticed was that their guitarist was ten (ok, I exaggerate... he
was eight), which I found oddly entertaining. The next thing though was that
they sounded a lot like they were emulating other bands (Capdown, Adequate 7
and, self admittedly, The White Stripes). But as they got further into their set
I started to enjoy it much more because the songs were, crucially, good. Even if
it did feel like I'd heard it before. They were very confident as well with much
joking, chatting and bad dancing (the trumpet player is the only other person on
Earth who dances like me - eyes closed, head banging, hands at sides and feet
moving side to side) though I thought the guitarist was a bit self conscious of
this, he kept checking if the audience were looking, I got the feeling he was
trying to be a bit "wacky". Which bugged me slightly. Overall they
were good and they are still young so they have plenty of time to find their own
sound. When they do, look out for them, they could very well be brilliant.
7 out of 10
Next were All About Adam. Hard to say much about them. They played reasonably
catchy pop punk but there wasn't all that much to the music. Their reputedly
good live performance turned to light hearted insult slinging when the audience
didn't behave the way they wanted. It was a good laugh I suppose but in
retrospect I feel they were just an above average local pop punk band. Sorry.
6 out of 10
Vanilla Pod were a different matter. They were far catchier, far chunkier, far
funnier and just far better. They played a lot of very good songs which you felt
yourself wanting to shout along to even if you didn't know the lyrics, they had
a good on stage dynamic which mostly involved insulting each other in a variety
of ways and still put on a great show despite the singer having a sore throat. I
didn't have enough money on me to buy any of their CDs but they've convinced me
to try and go back next Monday when they'll be playing again, I recommend you do
too. Band of the night.
8 out of 10
They have a decade's worth of catchy material to their name and are fronted by
punk rock's answer to Jim Carrey, Squirtgun didn't disappoint. They didn’t
blow my mind either mind you, but I never expected them to so that's ok. They
sounded a bit like, as I love analogies so, the Descendents playing Ramones
songs, which was nice. They were loud, fast and fun. If anything the set went on
for a bit too long without much variation in their sound but I'm just knit
picking now. Very good.
8 out of 10