Thursday, November 17, 2005,
The Portland Arms, Cambridge

Lineup: That Fucking Tank, This Et Al, CRS*, Jellica / Kittenrock

Setlist

New Rock
Mexicanism
Warninglid
Solutions For Solved Problems
New Theory / Robots
The Cathode Fucking Ray Syndrome*

a welcome return to the portland then, after two whole years. (and almost a year and a half since the last cambridge date). gone are the days when we'd play there every month. that's been sacrificed to make way for not playing anywhere ever.

so... it feels like a long time since we've dusted down the rock gear, and after a quick and quiet practice where we remembered a few small details - the notes, that kind of thing - we were all eager to get it on. despite being live hermits, we have been knocking out songs apace this year and it's good testing them on home ground.

jellica / kitten rock kicked off proceedings with welcome slabs of amiga-rave-madness. i expected slightly lame 8-bit stylings but got really entertaining spazmoid electronica with a bit of porn 'performance' to boot. well... you'd probably have to have been there. two thumbs up.

our set was short and quick, with unusual interpretations on standard tuning. unintentionally. our new tunes spewed out all over the place and sounded rather good despite it all. warninglid was a welcome break and went down like some kindof' billie mahonie music box, before the well-worn end three tunes. my amp goes up to ten and i can still hear d's new amp blazing away. huzzah.

i saw more of this et al in soundcheck than live, so can't really give a full opinion - they produced some good-sounding clamour earlier in the evening, but i confess we were all waiting for TFT to make their appearance. not so sure about this red / black opposite tie and shirt phenomenon. makes me doubt a band.

TFT arrived, stripped down to their pants and shoes and gave us The Noise. clever clever switching between bass and guitar amps and crushing drums (all else to hand too). lots of jerking about, a late journey home and a very stiff neck in the morning. no hearing. rock. pain.

more please.

Posted by Arthur CRS* on 28/07/2008 10:58:58 PM

Back to gigs