Face-o-meter, big in spirit and wordplay, deft with guitar and playful with the tiny audience, tonights so-called ‘cursed’ gig could have fallen apart if it were not for three young men who through a concoction of originality, big-heartedness and out-right ingenuity made the gig utterly memorable. Face-o-meter’s warm and engaging performance included lyrical brilliance in the shape of a certain song about William Blake and a hilarious tale on the origins of Radiohead’s Creep in an Exeter toilet. Next came Humans Are Amazing. Humans Are Amazing ARE AMAZING!!!!! (I just wanted to say that). I found it interesting how most performers stand in the front of the music with laptops and drum machines in the background playing guitar or screaming, whereas with Humans Are Amazing the instrumentation was not the performance, it was the rythym. This young man was playing on a botched together and unfamiliar kit and yet through this difficulty he produced a 30 min. live set of pulverising noise rock that lifted me through the chest and got my adrenalin coursing its way through my body. It was sweaty, physical and in places brutal. Yet full of nuance, brass, keys was that an organ I heard? Squalling feedback? This guy is a big yes in my book. One to watch. Rock-A-Rolla magazine needs this man
Foetus 502 headlining had a difficult task. But he pulled it off. whereas Humans Are Amazing exploded into the space, Foetus 502 sucked us in…deep. There is a certain disregard to anyone but the world he has created in his music, almost like an isolated spirit or ghost that isn’t part of this world and doesn’t need to be. People honestly didn’t know what to make of it, but as the short set progressed with the hiss and grind of his droning yet catchy as hell pop the crowd warmed, and so I think did Foetus’ confidence. The finale was utterly devastating with the set closer and Foetus 502 crouched into himself with a wash of tape noise dwarfing him and saturated in red light. It was a poetic moment that I shall never forget.
Big up Gappy Tooth!!
