Holy State / Pulled Apart By Horses / Rolo Tomassi @ The Faversham, Leeds. 19th April 2009

This is a big line up for a gig on a Sunday night Holy State’s EP on Holy Roar is a cracker (See my review here), Pulled Apart By Horses are a force to be reckoned with in the live setting they just rock the fuck out like new skool grunge legends or something. Then there is the always intense and mesmerising stop start free-jazz-spazz-hardcore of Sheffield’s young guns Rolo Tomassi. I for one was pretty excited.

Holy State took the stage to a really dead and spares crowd unfortunately this put a bit of a damper on things but they still played their harts out. They tore out tracks from their debut EP in a short live wire set with riffs, screaming and the all important quality tracks. I’d love to see them play a livelier gig as the crowed was proper lame.

Pulled Apart By Horses are local hero’s / loons in Leeds they play everywhere and anytime it seems, I think I’ve caught them accidentally as much as I have on purpose as they crop up as support quite a bit. The band were having troubles this time mind as not only had the crowd only slightly grown and still felt dead out (I blame Sundays) but member James Brown injured himself somehow previously and wasn’t playing. He was apparently having his leg taken off and replaced with a horses, which will defiantly give them an extra kick when he rejoins the tour soon in Glasgow. They played some wicked stuff though, my highlights have to be the anthem Swan Dive High Five and E=MC Hammer they really shredded it up.

Now for the main event Rolo Tomassi took the stage with M83 setting the scene as intro music before doing their thing. Again the crowd was a little fuller but still dead, which was a really shame as I thought this would be a hype gig for Leeds on this tour. The sound was a bit muddy and muddled as well which didn’t help too much, this has been the case for all Faversham gigs I’ve been to mind so I wasn’t really surprised. Rolo played a set full of album material and only included one or two from the first EP this kind of gave the gig a really samey vibe, I’ve seen them mix it up a lot more and kill it. Highlights included the epic Gary Numan meats Hardcore ‘Nine’ and the brilliant ‘Digital History’ from the one sided 7” on Holy Roar, I’m pretty sure they played ‘Film Noir’ as well which always gets the gameboy-scream-core crew going.

All in all it was a nice gig but I kind of expected a bit more energy in the room, I wouldn’t blame the bands for that mind I blame the sleepy Sunday vibes and sound quality. Go and catch the rest of the tour where Grammatics also feature it will probably rock loads more.

http://www.myspace.com/holystate

http://www.myspace.com/pulledapartbyhorses

http://www.myspace.com/rolotomassi