Reviewed on 1st January 2004.

Threesome

Live at The Highwood on Saturday, 30th November 2002

Another Saturday night at the Highwood saw the typical mix of youth and experience that has become all so common under the banner of the bearded soundman. Although I have to say that I think the promoter's jumping on the bandwagon a bit by requesting a 20% increase in the doorprice (to £3). Think of what that could do to inflation!

First up were young metal outfit Steel Massacre, who I believe were playing their first gig tonight. Their set was manly Metallica covers, with one original (I think) and then Nickelback's "How you remind me..." to round things off. My first impressions of this band can be summed up by the words rabbit in the headlights, because these guys really looked scared. However, once they started playing, the results were quite impressive. The band showed a lot of potential, with a mainly solid rhythm section, a very promising guitarist and a singer who was impressive in about half of the songs (a bit more confidence and a few key changes and you'll be fine). The band themselves were the first to admit that the last song wasn't very good (to say the least), but I did enjoy the rest of their set. Discounting the last song, I'd give them a very commendable 7/10 (if I had to rate it). Rock on.

Second on stage were the aptly named Threesome, a kind of softcore punk/indie band. They consisted of lead singer/bassist was brimming with confidence (enhanced by the screaming young girls at the front of the stage), a guitarist who didn't really make any noticeable mistakes (except when he broke a string) and a very bemused-looking drummer (again, very few mistakes, except in the soundcheck I'm told). The professionalism of the band was needlessly pointed out by the afore-mentioned lead singer when the afore-mentioned guitarist broke the afore-mentioned string and had to borrow the guitar from the afore-mentioned Steel Massacre (anybody follow that?). Anyway, back to something that resembles sanity. The band opened with a speeded up version of the Rocky theme tune (well, the intro) before going into a set of original material. The Tom Song (strangely enough about a guy called Tom) went down well with everybody except Tom and, alongside the verse of Alvin and the Chipmunks, added a very fun aspect to the performance. Some of the slower numbers were a chance to get close with members of the opposite sex (it's just too bad that all the girls at the front were so mesmerized by the evil ginger one on stage).

Anyway, MOFO (Music of Foreign Origin) rounded the night with what you'd expect from the headliners (i.e. a good show). The stage looked a bit cramped (due to the numbers) and a strange mix of different styles belted out of the sound system with a very relaxed feel to the whole thing. Admittedly, I didn't really like the Eminem sample (purely because I don't like Eminem), but it was insignificant alongside the quality substance coming from the guys on stage.