I should also mention that we were treated to a mock space battle with toy guns; (for this the hirsute and unfeasibly tall drummer placed a cardboard box on his head as a kind of robot head).
I should also mention that we were treated to a mock space battle with toy guns; (for this the hirsute and unfeasibly tall drummer placed a cardboard box on his head as a kind of robot head).
One of the great nights at SUB, this gig; especially seeing it looked a good night at the outset and sometimes things just don’t live up to your expectations… As usual things started slightly later than the advertised time, which meant that lots of punters huddled quietly together in the preposterously small entrance foyer (okay, for entrance foyer, read under the stairs), drinking supermarket beer and studiously checking out old posters. Once started an acceptable crowd for a Saturday night (a good 30 people) crammed into the bike shed sized venue and prepared to take on whatever Red de Planeet had to throw at them.
Red de Planeet are great fun, we’ve always enjoyed their shows, simply because they try to do something different and they aren’t afraid of making of themselves look daft, even if you do begin to realise they are earnest in what they do. Things this time round were slightly different; gone were the old Barrett-esque spacey grooves, replaced with more samples, a driving beat and a sort of glam disco racket which seemingly took succour from sources such as the Pet Shop Boys… Somehow by the end of their set they’d started to sound like a scuzzy, lo-fi Prince; it was all a bit weird. The band themselves still looked – as they’ve always done –like the Cosmic Jokers, albeit a Cosmic Jokers rummaging in the bins behind the Co-Op. I should also mention that we were treated to a mock space battle with toy guns; (for this the hirsute and unfeasibly tall drummer placed a cardboard box on his head as a kind of robot head). All in all, an endearingly silly set and full of wild and slapdash promise.
Following quickly on were KIT, whose latest record Incendiary likes a lot. KIT could have had history on their side if only they’d known it. Not being the tallest of bands I reckon they could have been the first act to have been able to fit on the legendarily small SUB stage for a whole gig without falling off… Sadly this didn’t come to pass, but my initial disappointment was overwhelmed by the gig which has to go down as one of the best and most uplifting seen at this venue. The band belted out their screaming, thrashy punk with venom and a verve that took the audience by surprise: at times they were like a well drilled machine, and armed with a collective sensibility that looked to both inform and entertain; something that European bands often don’t have. In between tracks there was little if any dawdling, another American trait. It also helped that the sound was clean and crisp; guitars sound good in the SUB when there’s lots of tremolo and little distortion. Even so, these intense songs wouldn’t have worked with a wall of fuzzy sound: KIT were here to punch the senses, not to stroke or beguile them. The crowd lapped it up; an encore was given (in itself a rare thing here) and punters went home happy.
Top night all round.