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| Photo (c) Pier Corona |
Last time Buried in Smoke and Pure Concentrated Evil brought Orange
Goblin to Oxford it was in the grand and spacious expanses of the Regal,
a venue that was perhaps too large to ever fill with Orange Goblin
fans, especially in Oxford. This time, however, the promoters brought
the vintage stoner rockers to the upstairs room of the O2 Academy, a
venue far better suited to the band’s fan-base and brand of sweaty rock
and/or roll.
The venue was respectably – if sparsely – populated when opening act
Komrad took to the stage, but more and more people piled in throughout
the course of their set. Pound for pound, Komrad had more musical ideas
going on than all of the other bands combined – often in the space of
one song. Opening track ‘Robotmen’, for example, sounds like the
soundtrack to a broken circuit and could probably be compartmentalised
into an EPs worth of material. Watching guitarists Jimmy Hetherington
and Russ Blaine shimmy up and down their respective fretboards so
nonchalantly is quite disconcerting and I come away with something akin
to penis envy. The rhythm section of drummer James Currie and bassist
Dave Cranwell lock into some incredibly shifty, tumultuous grooves while
James Greene half screams, half croons about parking restrictions in
seaside towns and various other gripes. It’s hard to describe what
Komrad do really – they’re kind of like Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band
meets Faith No More. ‘Cowley Necktie’, their perennial set-closer and
the band’s twisted ode to Cowley Road, is the song that finds the band
at their most triumphant, head-nodding, crowd-pleasing best. An odd but
excellent start to the night.
Oxford’s crowning stoner rock titans Desert Storm waste no time
kicking into some mighty sand-swept grooves with frontman Matt Ryan
temporarily transposed into the form of a whiskey-soaked and highly
volatile Southern deviant. ‘Ol’ Town’, ‘Cosmic Drips’ and ‘Astral
Planes’ all contain riffs that are pretty much too good to be true,
kicking up almighty dust clouds along the imagined dirt-roads that the
band are traversing. Sure there are occasional hints of Clutch, Kyuss,
Sleep and Pantera throughout their set but one of Desert Storm’s
strengths is being able to balance their influences with their own take
on the genre, all with a sly sense of not taking themselves too
seriously. They nod in unison, Chris Benoist rocks out with his legs
spread dangerously far apart and Matt Ryan riles the crowd into a beer
and Orange Goblin sized frenzy. It’s fair to say that the Oxford lot
have done themselves proud tonight and Desert Storm prove that no-one in
Oxford cuts a groove quite like these guys.
Next up are Orange Goblin’s touring mates, Plymouth’s good-time party
band Grifter. One of Grifter’s biggest selling-points is frontman Ollie
Styall who is as good an entertainer as you could ask for, the perfect
hype man to get the crowd ready for Orange Goblin. In between songs
about Guinness, buck-toothed women and “rock n’ roll” Stygall talks
about Guinness, buck-toothed women and rock n’ roll, and wins the
ever-cynical Oxford crowd over – no mean feat. Musically the band touch
base with AC/DC, early Slade, Motorhead, even Spinal Tap on a few
occasions (that’s no insult, Spinal Tap fucking rule) and even knock out
a damn fine cover of ‘Fairies Wear Boots’ by Black Sabbath. The guys
then reveal that one of their songs, ‘Sweat Like Horses’, is going to be
used in the new series of Dog: Bounty Hunter. You get the
picture – these guys aren’t out to change the world, they’re just making
good ol’ fashioned rock n’ roll and the now-packed O2 Academy lap it
up.
Orange Goblin. Got to be honest, not a massive fan – some of their
stuff I can listen to, some of their stuff I tend to tune-out for. Last
time they played in Oxford at the Regal I thought they were abysmal and
over-hyped beyond belief. Tonight, in the smaller, cosier confines of
the O2 they actually came across far better in contrast. Frontman/giant
Ben Ward spends the first five to ten minutes of their set stomping
around the stage, drinking beer, pushing the microphone stand out into
the crowd and shaking his beefy arms in the air (presumably to
appease/arouse the gods of rock or something) before the band cut into a
set heavily composed of the new album with a handful of oldies
thrown-in for, y’know, the oldies in attendance. The new album,
apparently something of a return to form for the band after a few
misses, is best represented by ‘Red Tide Rising’, a song designed to get
the crowd moving. But it’s one the evening’s mellower moments that
really wins me over – ‘Time Travelling Blues’, one of the band’s most
beloved songs, a sort of homage to the lazy, nostalgic rock n’ roll of
Lynyrd Skynyrd et al. But if the best that be said about your set is
that it’s highly derivative or ‘alright’ then something is clearly off.
The musicianship throughout is excellent but the content is too safe,
too stale and too predictable to warrant the heroic reception these guys
receive.
[Originally published on Music in Oxford, 15/05/2012]
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