Review – Heifer + UBAM + 9 O’Clock No James
@ Blaxland Tavern 16Jun00
9
O’Clock No James were into
the last song of their apparent all-in jam when I arrived at the Kelts Bar of
the Blaxland Tavern, with eight people on stage, three of them singers… according
to the press these were the first of two local bands on tonight’s bill and were
supported accordingly! This was the second-biggest mid-week crowd I have ever
seen and being in a quite large room probably says something to those both
trying to book acts in the city and thinking of business ventures out in the
suburbs!
While the sound was good in the
room, the stage set-up is quite strange, with one FOH stack blocking stage
right (from where I stood, behind the sound-desk for the first two acts). The
same could also be said for the other side of the stage and with the limited
vantage points in the room, this probably isn’t a good look, especially with
the empty space to stage right, behind the ‘gate keeper’. But I digress, and
finding out the UBAM
were to be the next act made the trip well worth taking.
Unfortunately, the UBAM spot I saw the other week seemed
a little restricted tonight, due mainly to the smaller stage. But for the only
other non-local act on the bill, this didn’t seem to take anything away for the
fans who turned out in droves. The show was probably identical as well, with
the same chunky grooves, the same energy, the same theatrics, but AOD on bass now has what’s left of
his hair tied in braids, and more a gruesome makeup design!
Who Wrote This Song, Op Shopping and Who Cares leapt out of a set which I found to start dragging on after
a while. Maybe there are too many
less-thrashy less-chunky songs back-to-back – the mood setting of the earlier
tunes was lost during the lower-tempo, lower-energy, more pop-oriented songs
but regained toward the end. A shorter set list could remedy this next time, or
a re-working of the set entirely. «««
It looked, while Heifer were setting up for set 3, that the dwindling-crowd
syndrome had come to the Mountains; a comment made by a colleague to that
effect was reflected in the seeming dour morale of the band members. But no
sooner had that comment been made than the local troops were out in force up
the front for the most fervent, most varied, most energetic support of the
night. The Cyborg Heifer backdrop and kick-skin gave no indication of the set
we were all to enjoy to the max, and soon the Black
Sabbath styled intro led
into the most powerful and upbeat set of the night.
Heifer were as big and beefy as their EP suggests. Chunk, chop,
change, chunk again through this seemingly short but vigorous set. From the
time Rob jumped onto
the stage and everyone (I’m sure Reuben was too, behind the kit!) up there was pogoing for most of
that song and the rest of the set. Rob is a man possessed: almost Lydonesque; Matt is also possessed, rumbling those
low-notes like there’s no tomorrow with oft-intricate runs and riffs; and the
two guitarists, Andy
and Cliff are at two
sides of the performance scale: one breaking into the occasional head-bang,
leap and W*A*S*P-styled hair-twirl, while the
other is more subdued, but no lesser a performer for it!
I can’t adequately express how
extreme the energy was in the room for this band, both on and in front of the
stage, heightened of course for the EP tracks Nancy Boy Surprise and their current radio hit Mark
Mark. Wicked Weed gained some obvious support as well! This RATM, FNM, Superheist, Apostrophe styled presentation obviously
scores big points out here in the far West! I guess you’ll just have to check
them out for yourself!! «««««