On Tuesday 17th March, I went to a gig at the Craufurd Arms in Wolverton, Milton Keynes. On the undercard were Crossburner, Desert Storm (DS) and Hang the Bastard (HtB).
The band that I actually went to see was Desert Storm, in fact I have posted about seeing this outfit before. The other two were completely new to me.
Unlike The Library pub in Oxford, where I last saw Desert Storm, The Craufurd Arms (TCA) is a proper gig venue as opposed to a crap one (although on this particular Tuesday, there was a drains issue which, when combined with the gig hall’s standard stale ale aroma, meant that TCA smelt a bit crappy).
In “Billy No Mates” fashion, I went to this gig on my own so watched Crossburner because there was nothing better to do and, to be blunt, this band made so little impression on me that I had to take to the web to remind myself what it was actually called.
A rotund, bearded fellow with a woolly hat, camouflage print jacket and some unusual facial expressions did a lot of unintelligible shouting and wailing and beyond that I remember little. To be frank, not many others will remember that much either – there were only about 20 people in the room.
On the subject of beards though; there were so many full size beards on show that one might have thought one had arrived at a ZZ Top convention, an Islam conversion course, or a Gimli fan club meeting (a Lord of the Rings reference). Elliot Cole, the drummer from Desert Storm has a beard that would be the envy of jihadists throughout the Middle East.
How did significant facial hair get so damn popular?
Unlike tattoo proliferation, at least women haven’t started growing beards too!
But forgive me I digress; Desert Storm took to the stage at around 9pm and played a six song set to an increased audience of about 50 people (still, it was a school night in Wolverton; the headliners, HtB, didn’t attract a larger throng). The tracks played were:
Six songs doesn’t seem like a lot but as each was more than five minutes long, you will appreciate that there was enough material to fill the time slot available. Four of the songs can be found on the band’s recently released Omniscient album (which, by the way, is excellent).
DS played with skill and once again I was impressed by Matt Ryan’s powerful, deep throat, slightly gargled vocals - if you heard them in isolation, you wouldn’t believe that the voice would belong to this young, slim chap.
Desert Storm plays heavy, sludgy metal with some occasional, more blues inspired guitar and bass; it’s technical, interesting and engaging. What it isn’t, is frantic, high energy, mosh-inducing stuff; and the audience duly didn’t.
When DS’s time allocation was up the guys stopped playing and thanked everyone for coming. Personally I would have loved to hear some more, the time had just flown by.
Afterwards, the guys mingled with the audience and watched the next band. I spent some time chatting to Chris White, one of the guitarists, and have to say that it’s this kind of interaction that makes the smaller, local gig so much more interesting than something at a large venue where the bands are segregated from their fans/paying customers.
Hang the Bastard, took to the stage next and, without a word to the audience, ploughed on with its set. The stage, bathed in red lights and shrouded in dry ice, was as doomy-gloomy as the wall of noise that followed. The singer shrieked, the bassist growled occasionally, the two guitarists were largely hidden in the red fog and I don’t think I actually saw the drummer during the whole set.
I lost track of the number of songs, they all sounded remarkably similar, and to be honest, I lost interest pretty quickly. The set finished as suddenly as it began and the band just left. No engagement with the audience at any point.
I remarked to Chris, “that’s it then is it?”; moments later the lights in the hall were switched on and it was time for the punters to file out, not that I cared much by this point, I was glad to go home.
I won’t be seeing Hang the Bastard again (or Crossburner for that matter) but I have much more time for Desert Storm, in my view a good band, the act that should have been headlining and one that I will make time to see again as soon as I can.
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The band that I actually went to see was Desert Storm, in fact I have posted about seeing this outfit before. The other two were completely new to me.
Unlike The Library pub in Oxford, where I last saw Desert Storm, The Craufurd Arms (TCA) is a proper gig venue as opposed to a crap one (although on this particular Tuesday, there was a drains issue which, when combined with the gig hall’s standard stale ale aroma, meant that TCA smelt a bit crappy).
In “Billy No Mates” fashion, I went to this gig on my own so watched Crossburner because there was nothing better to do and, to be blunt, this band made so little impression on me that I had to take to the web to remind myself what it was actually called.
A rotund, bearded fellow with a woolly hat, camouflage print jacket and some unusual facial expressions did a lot of unintelligible shouting and wailing and beyond that I remember little. To be frank, not many others will remember that much either – there were only about 20 people in the room.
On the subject of beards though; there were so many full size beards on show that one might have thought one had arrived at a ZZ Top convention, an Islam conversion course, or a Gimli fan club meeting (a Lord of the Rings reference). Elliot Cole, the drummer from Desert Storm has a beard that would be the envy of jihadists throughout the Middle East.
How did significant facial hair get so damn popular?
Unlike tattoo proliferation, at least women haven’t started growing beards too!
But forgive me I digress; Desert Storm took to the stage at around 9pm and played a six song set to an increased audience of about 50 people (still, it was a school night in Wolverton; the headliners, HtB, didn’t attract a larger throng). The tracks played were:
- Sway of the Tides
- Queen Reefer
- Horizon
- Forked Tongues
- Collapse of the Bison Lung
- Enslaved in the Icy Tundra
Six songs doesn’t seem like a lot but as each was more than five minutes long, you will appreciate that there was enough material to fill the time slot available. Four of the songs can be found on the band’s recently released Omniscient album (which, by the way, is excellent).
DS played with skill and once again I was impressed by Matt Ryan’s powerful, deep throat, slightly gargled vocals - if you heard them in isolation, you wouldn’t believe that the voice would belong to this young, slim chap.
Desert Storm plays heavy, sludgy metal with some occasional, more blues inspired guitar and bass; it’s technical, interesting and engaging. What it isn’t, is frantic, high energy, mosh-inducing stuff; and the audience duly didn’t.
When DS’s time allocation was up the guys stopped playing and thanked everyone for coming. Personally I would have loved to hear some more, the time had just flown by.
Afterwards, the guys mingled with the audience and watched the next band. I spent some time chatting to Chris White, one of the guitarists, and have to say that it’s this kind of interaction that makes the smaller, local gig so much more interesting than something at a large venue where the bands are segregated from their fans/paying customers.
Hang the Bastard, took to the stage next and, without a word to the audience, ploughed on with its set. The stage, bathed in red lights and shrouded in dry ice, was as doomy-gloomy as the wall of noise that followed. The singer shrieked, the bassist growled occasionally, the two guitarists were largely hidden in the red fog and I don’t think I actually saw the drummer during the whole set.
I lost track of the number of songs, they all sounded remarkably similar, and to be honest, I lost interest pretty quickly. The set finished as suddenly as it began and the band just left. No engagement with the audience at any point.
I remarked to Chris, “that’s it then is it?”; moments later the lights in the hall were switched on and it was time for the punters to file out, not that I cared much by this point, I was glad to go home.
I won’t be seeing Hang the Bastard again (or Crossburner for that matter) but I have much more time for Desert Storm, in my view a good band, the act that should have been headlining and one that I will make time to see again as soon as I can.
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