Archive for the ‘Live Gig Reviews’ Category

You may remember way back in 1995, something big happened… well apart from The Springboks winning the World Cup, it was the year that Faithless unleashed 'Insomnia' onto virtually every dance floor known to mankind (except in Pofadder, the local DJ just started playing it for the first time last Friday night, its gonna be big).

The song has been spinning on decks ever since and lost very little momentum over the past 15 years (crikey where have the years gone!) its been remixed over and over but never ever reaching the heights of the original. Its a song that just as the name says on the tin… Insomnia… the song that never sleeps.

Faithless is the brainchild of none other than Maxi Jazz,, Sister Bliss and Rollo, absolute legends in my eyes who are never less known as pioneers of dance music, setting new standards and slotting straight in above fresh new artists, always adapting to the times or being the benchmark. They've come up through the years from strength to strength stopping no where short of being a household name to even the youngest of peepee jollers to the oldest of well hardened clubbers, even my ballie schmaaks it! I couldn't possibly count how many times I've squeaked a takkie to tracks such as Reverence, Insomnia, God is a DJ and We Come 1, a personal favourite, bringing back fond memories when I think of each.

And so, would you believe it, after a bit of a break, they're banging at it once again and trust me, when you hear what's to come, you better grab hold of your socks… unless you're doing a Jim from American Pie, in which case, you will be holding your sock

Two avid PharSiders and personal friends of mine, Little Richie Crofts (I've known him a while, he ain't so little in anymore mind you) and Ricky Clements, were at Matter at the O2 arena here in London in December to see Faithless live, and they just so happened to be interviewed for the latest Faithless promo video which was uploaded to Faithless's YouTube Channel this evening!

Check it out… Ricky seems to do all the talking but then Richie pipes up with some serious words of wisdom out of no where… Faithless should get in on the World Cup action in South Africa this year and push We Come 1 as a World Cup anthem, obviously not the official song which will probably be done by someone local (hopefully not good ol' Ras) or world music band for that matter, but its just a thought, use it don't use it…

Check the video out now… it ain't hard to miss Richie and Ricky… they're the only Saffa's in the video (bottom left of the still)

Awesome stuff boys! Well said  
Ricky has pounded the Durban clubbing scene for years and years, it doesn't make me the least bit surprised to check him in this vid

And just one last thing… the song played in the video is what's to come called "Sun To Me"… can you handle! WOOT! WOOT!

Check out the official website here http://faithless.co.uk/

- Marky Mark

Last night I was invited down to the legendary and world famous 100 Club down on Oxford Street, Central London to see a band that I’ve been hearing a lot about for a while but not had the chance to see them live, until now…. and I will say this in every expressive way imaginable and in all absolute sense of the word….WOW!

My friends, it is my great pleasure and honour to present to you…STARSEED!

I say that because I feel privileged to be writing this and to have seen them live while they are still playing in the smaller venues. This is a band that I can honestly say, are definitely going to be up there with the big boys in the not too distant future.

These guys are big band material all the way and from what I heard last night, I am actually quite amazed that they are still playing small venues. Now I’ve heard that they have been getting some 4/5; 9/10 rave reviews in big label rock magazines such as Kerrang, and rumour has it that they are on their way at becoming the next Seether, which correct me if I’m wrong, is to date, South Africa’s most popular and successful South African Alternative Rock export, however saying that, it is rather difficult to compare the two when it comes to musical style as Seether being more of your Grungy Alternative, for example, Nirvana, Puddle of Mudd, Silverchair, whereas Starseed are a little heavier with Alternative Hard Rock, if you think more on the lines of a Metallica feel. So they definitely aren’t something for all you closet Sugar Babes fans as you can imagine.

Now I won’t lie, I arrived expecting to see a good South African band, don’t get me wrong, no disrespect to the SA bands out there, I’m in full support and behind you all the way, but the UK aswell as the US I imagine, has a lot more competition. You need to be at the top of your game in every second of every set, it’s a ruthless scene that is quick to dismiss those that don’t cut it. Back in the day I used to practically live at the Buzz Bar and Churchills in Maritzburg supporting SA Music with the likes of Arapaho, Squeal, Wonderboom, Sons of Trout, Amersham, The Springbok Nude Girls, Sugar Drive, the list goes on. These bands were all brilliant, they were the pioneers of SA Rock. The music was great, it was new and it was happening but there is one thing that I’ve always said and I’ll say it again, apart from Just Jinger who seemed to nail it on the acoustic side, it was a bit thin and lacked the fullness with serious punch that you’d hear on most internationally recorded albums. Nobody was at fault for this; SA Rock was in its infancy and building itself up to the standard so this was acceptable, however the reality of it was, that it was what it was. When Starseed belted out their opening song, “Shine” which is their current single, I stood there with eyes wide open and stunned, because this was not your usual South African band, it was punchy and it was full, these guys were exceptionally tight, probably one of the tightest live bands I’ve seen in a small venue ever, which is why I said in the beginning, I’m amazed that these guys are still playing small venues. The performance as a whole was very truthfully a studio quality performance, you’d have thought they’d been rehearsing the same songs for the last 20 years over and over non stop because they were performed that well. Starseed appear to be extremely serious about what they are trying to achieve here, and that’s a quality you really see in top rock bands, although saying that, if you take a look at the guys on an individual basis you can see each off them loves what he does. Andy the drummer looks like he’s a baby having a party in a paddling pool behind the drums; you can see the enjoyment from a mile away. Russell has an extremely wide range on the vocals which I found really impressive, Dale on bass is totally swimming in his vibe, Peter on lead guitar cradles and speaks fluently to his guitar as if it was a language that only they understand but sounds amazing, and last but not least, Gerald on rhythm guitar plays and really communicates with the crowd on a musical level which even gets the statues moving.

I left the venue last night still quite stunned and taken back by what I’d seen, these guys are good, and when I say good, I mean frickin good, completely going well beyond what I was expecting. If you enjoy your Rock, then this is one band I suggest you take the time to go and see, because you’ll probably leave there as taken back as I was with their performance.

Take my word for it, I don’t get paid to write this, I’m not just saying all this because they are South African (although it was the initial reason I went to see them) and I’m not gonna try sell you hot air, but I wouldn’t be sitting here writing a 1010 word review if I didn’t think they were that great. I guess you could say I was pretty much blown away.

I do feel sorry for any band that Starseed open for because they’d have a lot to live up to. As my friend Justin Badenhorst will tell you, as he’s witnessed, it’s not every day that the support act completely blows away the main act, but it happens.

Yours truely hanging with Starseed after their gig.

This is the video for their latest single “Shine”… enjoy

Click here for the official Starseed website

Excellent guys! Can't wait to see what you come up with in the future, its looking to be massive!

- Marky Mark

The Fray completely rocked the Royal Albert Hall hands down!

This evening myself and The Jen headed over to The Royal Albert Hall to catch one of my all time favourite bands, The Fray for their long awaited show.
Its the first time I’ve been to the venue and was completely thrown back by its awesomeness, no wonder thats where the Queen herself likes to jol. One must also be quite impressed with thus magnificent awesomeness. It turned out to be an extremely intimate gig due to the venue and because of the fact that our seats where literally within about 3 meters of the stage, to the extent that if Isaac Slade felt the need to hock a loogy whilst he belowed through the mic standing on the monitors as he did, it probably would have landed on us.
They rang out with just about every song off their two albums, ‘How To Save a Life’ and ‘The Fray’ ending up with quite a long set which took us from 8:45pm through till just about 11pm. They did a pretty cool cover version of a Kanye West song during their encore, ‘Heartless’ I believe it was. My only disappointment for the show was that they didn’t play one of my all time Fray favourites, ‘Look After You’, but when I say disappointment, it was hardly a spec of dust on the giant window pane that was this awesome show. They really outdid themselves this time as the previous show that I saw them at The Hammersmith Apollo, was a bit of a slight let down in regard to stage presence. Now I’d like to point out that I was mainly there for the music but unfortunately it seemed as if they came on, did there thing and went straight off again, but this time it was the absolute and no holds barred complete opposite. Isaac communicated with the crowd on such a level by getting everyone to do this little hip hop hand gesture during the Kanye West song and getting everyone to pull out there cellphones to create a twinkling star effect throughout the venue, to telling stories of wooing his bird when they first met and generally acting the fool which was pretty wicked. Now I’ll tell you, this was probably the best gig I’ve been to in the sense of possibly taking the best photos ever however as my luck would have it, the first fail was that I forgot to take my camera to work with me this morning as I went straight from there, and the second fail came in where I couldn’t get the camera on my phone to work properly, so I landed up with no photos and no videos…lovely.

All in all, if you missed it, you missed out big, catch them the next time they come around which should be in the next year or so as they stop off in London quite often, I know I’ll definately be there.

- Marky Mark