Into The Valleys - 29/03/2011

Dolls House in Abertillery, last night.

Firstly, i was really impressed with The Dolts. Their opening numbers were fantastic and their singer (at only seventeen years of age, so i'm told) has an extremely powerful and natural growl. The set tailed off somewhat thanks to couple of clunky covers, but overall i was really impressed. They should stick to writing and focusing on their own material, when they nailed them they were blowing their cover versions clean out of the water. Excellent stuff.

I could go on at (great, great) length about the next band, Dirty Youth, but i think i'll just say that they weren't my bag. Their set was a car crash from start to finish, but it wasn't entirely of their own making to be fair. They seemed to be having some equipment difficulties (cordless mics, kids... they ain't big, cool, or remotely clever), the mix from the desk was awful and the crowd were hardly an enthusiastic bunch.

Minor disasters struck early on in our set. Rhys managed to kick his lead out during Lake Palmer, Robin snapped a stick and had to fumble around for another one midway through The Rest Will Follow, before Rhys broke his bottom E string later on in the same song. An obligatory call for the temporary loan of another guitar to use for the next few numbers went out, of which i have answered the call for tons of bands before as it's simple band etiquette, and i'm genuinely disappointed to say that i've never seen so many guitarists make a sudden and sharp b-line for the back of the room/outside before in my life. The ones that didn't (i'm looking at you Faux Youth... sorry, Dirty Youth) stood stock still and stared at us like we were talking Polish or something. Thanks guys. Rhys re-strung his guitar and the rest of the set went well enough. The sound onstage was absolutely atrocious but apparently didn't sound too bad out in the crowd. The guitar incident was disappointing, but i had lots of fun playing, as did the other boys.

Sadly we couldn't stick around for the entirety of BWXE set, but was i did see/hear sounded like tight screamo. Completely and utterly not my bag, but they were obviously really competent and lots of people seemed to be having a really good time watching them. Shortly after we left a huge fight erupted outside the Dolls House, limbs flying everywhere according to Rhys and Eddie. I detest seeing violence happen at shows, so i'm glad i missed it all. I hope all involved have woken up this morning with nothing more than a sore head, a couple bruised knuckles and a deep sense of embarrassment.