Post Dilluvium + Calico + OK Hotel + Hentai
London Bull and Gate
Wednesday 12th December 2001

I must admit to missing most of HENTAI due to the marvellously confusing London UnderGround.  They are one of an increasing number of bands that are instrumental, not really my thing, so I can�t comment on if they were good or not. I couldn't pick out much of what they were doing, but they certainly seemed to make the most noise of any band tonight! Next up were OK HOTEL, they started off a bit stilted, but had soon drawn their boundaries and filled the space with some really atmospheric tunes.  Imagine MUSE and BOB DYLAN doing a cooking programme, with an audience full of JESUS AND MARY CHAIN bringing on the noise!  This band has a good amount of cool on stage, with members like Matthias having to stop playing every now and again to move his pint off the keys of his keyboard, and singer Chris jumping around like he is trying to escape a football field of snakes that he has been dropped in the middle of!  One of the best songs tonight was "For Fathers Sake" which swooped violently between full on foot stomping chorus, and a gentle JEFF BUCKLEY type verse.  By the end of the set Chris was on the floor and bassist Tim was walking up and down the neck of his guitar. Very Entertaining!  CALICO were next up and hammered through a very HOLE/PLACEBO/maybe even TELEVISION type set.  The songs sounded very complex, but at the same time didn't leave you too cold as bands like this can.  The only thing that made me feel like an outsider was a comment from the guitarist who said "this,,,,,next,,,one,,,is,,,for,,,,,,,,all,,,,,you,,progressive,,,rock,,,,,fans."  I kid you not!  Didn't see it myself, but despite his patronising ways the leather clad bespectacled axe master did look cool!  I did feel a bit sorry for the bassist though, who had his pedals wrecked early on in the set by the enthusiastic twelve string guitarist. The gurl singer had a good pair of lungs on her and did justice to the cover of "I love Rock and Roll" by JOAN JET AND THE BLACK HEARTS.  To summarise I wouldn't mind seeing them again to see if those songs will stick with me!  Scottish punks POST DILLUVIUM were soon on stage and to be honest my first impression was pretty bad. But then it all changed when they started up.  This was the tightest band I have EVER seen play.  Sound wise they were hard to pinpoint, definitely punk, but there was some other ingredient there that I couldn't put my finger on.  By the end of the set I was pretty impressed, I know this because by the end of the set it only seemed that they had been onstage for about five minutes!  I caught up with the guitarist after the show who informed me that their new single was produced by none other than STEVE ALBINI, so could be one to watch out for.

Andrew Culture