The Sheffield Scenester

I barely managed to get down in time to catch the end of This Way Up’s set, in fact I walked in just as they were about to do a cover of the Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’. Now I’m the first to admit I have a bit of a soft spot for this group, the first time I saw them was down here and they totally blew me away with a relentless performance in their Green Day/Chemical Romance style of music and dress, they were truly amazing. When it came to their show at the O2 they took it upon themselves to try a different approach, and somehow that inner fire was barely a spark, but tonight they were back on form. They were back in black and back with a vengeance, lead singer Alex grabbed the audience by the b*lls and ran away with them, bass player Lucie came out of the shadows for all and sundry to see, which not to put too fine a point on it is a definite move for the better! One change to their line up came in the shape of drummer Mia Mortal (at least that’s her name on their Facebook profile so I’ll go with it), but she seemed pretty comfortable in the role. Finishing with their classic set closer ‘Concrete Sinners’ really had the crowd screaming for more, but even when they’re at their very worst, this song always delivers for them, and of course the horny panda reared his ugly head again, simulating some lurid sexual act on Alex whilst the song wound down, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, let it ride after all it’s only Rock ‘n’ Roll! Talking To Alex after the show he had this to say;

“Our previous drummer was too busy to carry on with the band and so we parted company by mutual consent really, we then found Mia (real name Fatima Mia Shadrokh-Cigari) who seems to work out fine. The horny panda just happened and is in fact a friend of ours, albeit a drunk one tonight, Jack Gunn. Tonight’s set felt a lot, lot better than when we played at O2, plus we were really psyched up for this one and it was good to be back in black, for us it feels more natural, it seems to fit the music better than anything else!”

Personally I much prefer this persona of their band and with a crowd behind them 120%, then it would appear sticking with it is the only option, experiment by all means, but stay true to the fundamental origins of the band!

Following on from this was a four piece from Stafford called Regards, these guys really were the flip side of the coin when compared to This Way Up, but in their defence they didn’t shy away from the challenge. With indie music that at times slots nicely into the American folk rock genre of Tom Petty and Van Morrison, they make quite a case for themselves. Taking the song ‘Bring You To Life’, we are given some sharp choppy guitar work interspersed with an almost harmonious chorus, these are then cleverly spliced together to form a fluid and catchy song. This is in stark contrast to the song ‘Fade Out’ which has rather more oomph to it and a chant like chorus as well, “I just couldn’t take anymore” bounces around inside your head and never lets you forget it. They do in fact have quite a variety of styles on offer as with ‘To Live Alone’, this could almost be mistaken for an acoustic rendition, whilst other songs in their set such as the closing song ‘Belltower’ could in all honesty fit in with a Top Gear selection. Opening with a steady but simple riff on guitar, it drops into a gentle gallop before finding the turbo button and racing of into the sunset, it’s this variety and the use of two backing singers that really gives Regards quite a distinctive sound that is hard to ignore that I’d be more than happy to hear again.

Sleepwalker, a band we’ve seen on numerous occasions were up next and before they even got on stage they gave us the ‘Fight Club’ speech as their walk-on piece, so with that to pump us up....the crowd were ready. No messing about, they came straight in with ‘Leaves’, the grunge, the grinding driving rock and the melodic to screaming vocals were all there, in other words “If you don’t like this then you’re not gonna like the rest of our stuff!” They may not have verbalized it, but you kinda got the impression that was the agenda tonight, me for one was happy especially with the b*ll*ck kicking song that followed ‘Get Away’, it may hit you in the nuts, but it didn’t stop people, me included, singing along to it...frankly it is one of their best songs and they’ve used it to great effect as an opener on many occasions so I was surprised to see it get shunted. ‘Legend’ followed this and singer Jack Greenwood kindly explained that this was about Bob Marley and cannabis, I’m not sure how since it did involve a lot of screaming....but I’m guessing it’s the thought that counts! Pausing before the last song to say that they would be supporting Letz Zep at some point, they immediately launched into their most Zep like song ‘Part Of A Book’, a hell of a rocking track with Jimmy Page influence thrown in for good measure, it did culminate into a bit of screaming but it makes for a good show and the crowd were up for it as well!

At last it was time for Decode who were launching their EP ‘Shaping Shadows’ tonight, another band who incorporate a certain amount of screaming into their songs, not to the extent that Sleepwalker do.....but every now and then singer Daniel Jeffery will hold a note until his vocal chords are ready to explode. While they may be rock/metal, they seem to take influences from quite a spectrum of sources, the drums can hammer away with ferocity of any punk metal act around, but then they’ll drop into an almost angelic guitar melody while Daniel sings, or almost croons, a seductive yet sorrowful ballad. Tonight they played the entire five tracks off the EP....but thankfully didn’t introduce them as “This is another one off our EP available…….” as well as playing my all time favourite track of theirs ‘Blackstar’. The last time we saw these guys Daniel was experimenting with backing tracks, but now without even trying to listen out for them they were most definitely there and they worked beautifully. With one hell of a crowd behind them tonight, it was obvious Decode loved playing for playing’s sake tonight, in fact the bass player was that excited he even climbed up onto the speaker stack and carried on playing up there for a while.....carefully checking to make sure he wouldn’t bang his head first though! As is tradition with Decode, the last song is always an excuse to mosh, the crowd had started ages back but Daniel likes to make it official for the final song, so while they played ‘Your Country Is Ours’ the crowd just went wild before Daniel threw himself into them leaving the band to play out the end of the song by themselves!

A really good night with four good bands, a lot of guitars, a lot of sweat and a lot of good, good music, proving that there’s more to Sheffield than Arctic Monkey wannabes!

Words and photos by Geoff Buckthorpe