By my own admission I'm a gig whore; I love gigs, I just love 'em. That said, I've never being much of a Skunk Anansie fan so, quite unbelievably, I had to be talked into this one (my willpower has the breaking strain of a Kit Kat where gigs are concerned though, so it's not like I had to have my arm twisted that much).
Brighton's Make Good Your Escape kicked off the evening. From my position at the rear of The Wedgewood Rooms, I could only see three people onstage, I therefore naturally assumed that the muezzin-style introduction was a backing tape. No, though I only realised this as the band's front man slowly got to his feet. In addition to being possessed of a powerful range lead singer Mike Yates also has a comfortable stage presence; he works the crowd whilst the guitar and bass players blur out in time to the music, the drummer hiding at the back (only surfacing to run offstage for a disposable camera, returning to snap a a photo of the audience).
In a "it's late and I'm lazy and I've mislaid my big book of adjectives" way to describe their sound I'd say that they started off with a Mew\Muse feel (power chords, power vocals), changing to a more Muse\U2 sound as their set progressed (slightly more anthemic, mellower lyrics). All good though, and I'd like to hear more of them (luckily there are a few MP3s available from the band's website).
Skin stalked onstage, a woolly hat covering her trademark shaved head, and grabbed the microphone firmly by the stand. Lifting it above her head she began to sing and, frankly, wow. Her vocals boomed though, I must confess, they sounded slightly muffled. All was explained after two songs when, after trying in vain to introduce herself to the audience, she discovered her radio mic wasn't switched on.
Brighton's Make Good Your Escape kicked off the evening. From my position at the rear of The Wedgewood Rooms, I could only see three people onstage, I therefore naturally assumed that the muezzin-style introduction was a backing tape. No, though I only realised this as the band's front man slowly got to his feet. In addition to being possessed of a powerful range lead singer Mike Yates also has a comfortable stage presence; he works the crowd whilst the guitar and bass players blur out in time to the music, the drummer hiding at the back (only surfacing to run offstage for a disposable camera, returning to snap a a photo of the audience).
In a "it's late and I'm lazy and I've mislaid my big book of adjectives" way to describe their sound I'd say that they started off with a Mew\Muse feel (power chords, power vocals), changing to a more Muse\U2 sound as their set progressed (slightly more anthemic, mellower lyrics). All good though, and I'd like to hear more of them (luckily there are a few MP3s available from the band's website).
Skin stalked onstage, a woolly hat covering her trademark shaved head, and grabbed the microphone firmly by the stand. Lifting it above her head she began to sing and, frankly, wow. Her vocals boomed though, I must confess, they sounded slightly muffled. All was explained after two songs when, after trying in vain to introduce herself to the audience, she discovered her radio mic wasn't switched on.
Whoops.
Luckily a flick of a switch was all it took to fix matters, and then full power of her vocals became apparent (especially in a small venue like the Wedge). Not wanting to take the easy route, and save the crowd-pleasers for the encore, Skin decided to not only sing Weak early on but also to perform it in a mellower style.
There was no hiding the fact that Skin was enjoying herself, easily evident from the manic grin she sported throughout the set, and she was having so much fun she went walkabout to the back of the Wedge (aren't radio microphones great?). Later, during Take Me On, a new song which is, as she herself put it, "another [one] about fucking", she went crowd surfing too.
A couple of Skunk Anansie tracks were dropped in amongst the new songs to appease te ardent fans, the new material though sounded both very raw and very good; I have it on good authority that her first solo CD was a mellow affair, it appears though that Skin is returning with all guns blazing with the new material which has something of a punk edge to it.
The set finished up with a cracking cover of Electronic's Getting Away With It, bang on the stroke of 11. After an all too brief encore Skin bounded offstage, sporting the biggest grin ever. An excellent gig then; I'm very glad I went and I'm looking forward to hearing her new album when it's released early next year. Hopefully she'll be touring it...