The Sheffield Scenester

It was on the eve of Halloween (and bloody freezing outside) so we decided to head down to The Boardwalk for the Soundclash that was playing that night. Walking in the first thing we noted was that the gathered crowd were of a slightly more mature age than the average group we see at these gigs, which could only mean one thing; there was going to be a young band on tonight and since we didn’t recognise any of them it definitely wasn’t going to be Searching For Evidence!

Turns out they were called Disfunctioned and were the first band of the night and as expected they were quite nervous from the offset. Like most young bands starting out they have a set comprised of quite a few covers, which in itself is not a bad thing.....it just depends on...not only how well the covers are done, but which ones they do since this generally is an indication of their particular style. They covered three tracks, one by Paramore, a My Chemical Romance one and a Green Day one, so their style and influence are quite obvious already. American punk pop seemed to be their thing and so with a nervous start they began with a song called ‘I hope You Go’ which whilst not overly ambitious had chanting lyrics which kept your attention. It did take a couple of songs to get them relaxed into their set for by the third song they even started jumping on stage which received a round of cheers from the crowd. They wrapped up the set with Green day’s ‘Basket Case’, which was probably their best song, partly because it was a decent Green Day song in the first place, but also because they obviously felt more comfortable on stage at this point!

With the help of an army of parents, uncles, aunts, older brothers and whatever other members of the Family Tree could be found, Disfunctioned cleared their stuff off the stage, but it wasn’t until quite a while later that the following band Lionworks took to the stage. Mind you during this extended interval they did put on collection of Halloween inspired songs (courtesy of a CD supplied by us!) so we weren’t complaining, next time we must remember to mix the tracks together so they don’t have that awkward three second gap....live and learn I suppose!

The Lion Works were obviously a much more polished act, they were happy to prance about the stage, strike some classic guitar poses....the bassist even took time to have his picture taken whilst playing to the point whereby he actually followed instructions about looking at his instrument instead of the camera. The stage banter was funny and friendly, always a good sign even if the lead singer had a few issues concerning X Factor...at one point before the track ‘Aquaplane’ he said “Thanks to everybody for coming down rather than watch that boll*cks on TV!”, to which the bass player retorted “You’re not going to win many friends like that!” During the track ‘Sour note’ it became pretty obvious that this was about leaving in a less than harmonious way, as I recall a recurring line which simply said “This is what you drove me too!”. That wound their set up pretty well, and with an EP on the way which will be available soon, good luck to them.

Tivoli where up next and having seen them on numerous occasions, frankly it’s getting harder and harder to find something new to say about a band that really can do no wrong. As soon as the opening chords of their introductory music played out across the floor I was just happy to take a few pictures and listen. With the opening track ‘Dear Do’ swiftly followed by ‘The Messenger’, two of their best tracks by far especially with Russ Frisby knocking out one of the hookiest baselines I know in the former track. They did treat us to the premiere of a new track ‘Heavy Soul’ which oddly for them seemed to have a bit more funk about it than their usual militaristic inspired output. Naturally they ended with the classic, ‘Common Foot Soldier’ yet another of their songs which frankly is a master class in writing and execution alone. Like I said earlier I just sat back and listened, and I couldn’t have picked a better band to do it with, so for those who haven’t (which for any discerning music fan is hard to believe) go and see these guys at the earliest possible opportunity!

The headline band this evening was Sleepwalker, who like Tivoli we have seen on numerous occasions, but at times have been slightly vague as to what musical direction they should be headed in, we’ve seen them try on the grandiose epic structure of a Muse inspired set as well as the more restrained intellectual metal approach, neither of which seemed to sit right. So when they entered the stage with singer Jack Greenwood wearing a skull mask and the guitarist Jack Dyson wearing a Freddy Kruger outfit; my first thought was ‘they can’t be taking the Lord Jester route surly!’ Obviously the mask and Kruger gloves had to come off for the sake of the performance, but as soon as they started their change in style became quite apparent, for tonight was a fast and furious outpouring courtesy of frontman Jack. How furious you might ask..? Well put it this way, Jack managed to slash his finger open during the first track and from that point on just bled his way through the rest of the set.... which would have made a good advert for Cillit Bang! So with a good, but decorative crowd behind them, some of the girls were dressed as your stereotypical Halloween vamps, Sleepwalker took full control tonight and surprisingly stole the show for me - sorry Tivoli ;-) Their set was a definitive collection of hard edged numbers, all of which had a musical direction that meant something, Jack G played his heart out....he literally bled for the cause! And it was his performance that raised this group from the relative obscurity of yet another rock/metal wannabe to an exciting and dangerous force to be reckoned with. One of the most fascinating things that came out of their performance was that Jack G’s voice sounded like he meant what he was singing about, even when he injected screams into the mix...almost as if he took a leaf out of Decodes book. At the back was Skinny on drums and he just hit the living sh*t out of his kit, it was as if he was in competition with Jack G as to who could be the most psychotically driven tonight. Each of their tracks seemed to be composed of a classic melodic lulling moment which would ultimately lead into a guitar, drum and bass stand-off culminating in the inevitable high screeching frenzied finish. During one of these moments, a song which Jack G announced by saying “This is an anger song so I want to see everybody dancing and hitting each other”, he ended up writhing on the stage floor while still playing at full throttle! I managed to catch him after the show to ask him about this new direction, so still covered in blood and sweat, this was his response;

“I have been listening to a lot more screaming metal lately and it seems to be coming out in our songs a lot more. People have been saying my voice has improved lately...but I’m definitely not going to go and do the whole screaming thing. We like what we’ve done tonight and hope it works for other people as well!”

So what began as an awkward stilted evening ended on an astronomical high with Sleepwalker playing what for me was the set of their lives’. This set alone made the evening worth attending and to be backed up with Tivoli, it made trekking through what felt like sub zero temperatures well worth it!

Words & Photos by Geoff & Gail Buckthorpe