Posts Tagged ‘Dear Superstar’

For bands of Soil and Puddle of Mudd’s calibre, playing in such an intimate venue was always going to be a winner with the fans.  The 260 capacity Talking Heads was sold out pretty much from the day the show was announced making this very much one of those shows that you just had to be at and I think you could feel the excitement the second you walked in the venue. 

Opening band Verses suffered with a few technical problems notably absolutely no vocal for the first few songs but it didn’t seem to worry them.  Their songs are pretty infectious and they had a lot of energy on stage, I can definitely see them moving on to bigger things and would like to see how they sound without the technical problems.

Anyone that knows me knows I’ve never been the worlds biggest fan of Dear Superstar, they’re really nice guys but musically, I just didn’t get it.  Maybe it was the fact that they seemed to play at EVERY gig I went to for a while and I just got bored or maybe it was singer Mickys’ arrogant persona on stage.  To me back then it seemed that they were just a little bit over the top and for me it just distracted from the music.  Now however I am prepared to admit I may be changing my mind.  With mostly new, much harder and more credible songs they seem to have come into their own.   New album ‘Damned Religion’ could well be a turning point for Dear Superstar, it seems like they’ve finally found their sound and the cocky arrogance is replaced by some actually pretty damn good rock songs.

I wasn’t aware until just before the gig how much of a hard time Puddle of Mudd have had here in the UK.   An ill-fated support slot with Korn when ‘She Hates Me’ was in the charts seemed to have been a particularly hard time for them, having things thrown at them on stage and being booed as well as their fans being abused for wearing Puddle of Mudd merchandise couldn’t have been easy and to be honest after hearing some of the stories I’m stunned that they wanted to come back to the UK at all.  That however doesn’t excuse the lacklustre performance that they gave and if this is the way they played back then maybe some of the booing was justified.   Singer Wes seemed to be the main culprit behind the appaling performance that they put on.  Forgetting words and stopping mid song to stare at girls in the front row.  The tension between the members on stage was impossible not to notice and while the rest of the band were tight and played everything amazingly Wes was the weak link.  Fans were treated to a disappointingly short set with ‘Blurry’ not even played and while the audience loved tracks such as ‘Control’ and ‘She Hates Me’ I think everyone was stunned at the abrupt ending, expecting an encore that never came. 

As soon as Soil took to the stage the atmosphere in the venue was lifted.  They delivered a flawless set with singer Ryan clearly happy to be back with his bandmates  (Ryan left in 2004 to join Drowning Pool which he still fronts).  They opened with fan favourite ‘Breaking Me Down’ and sailed through their 12 song set never losing momentum and clearly loving every second as much as the crowd did.  Ryan is a consummate showman and definitely knows how to work a crowd, taking full advantage of the intimacy of the small venue.  The 2 song encore comprising of the song that bought most of us there ‘Halo’ was not to be missed, the band were joined on stage by all the support bands (Wes from Puddle of Mudd noticeable by his absence) before launching into an extended version of the track and creating an impressive mosh pit considering the limited room. The band finished with ‘Pride’ and were rewarded with requests for another encore, something that they sadly didn’t deliver.  I’ve seen Soil a few times over the last few years and I have to say that they’re a band I will continue to see in years to come.   The return of Ryan seems to have given them a new lease of life and they’re definitely one of the best live bands around today.

TheGigJunkie