I was pleasantly surprised with the opening acts on the night. Most noticeable of all was the way each band’s singer had a slightly different approach and personalities. The female singer of broken circle could really fuckin wail, the leadman for Death Before Disco looked so angry that he could boil water just by standing in front of it, using a cool dropping the microphone and just shout technique. Another observation is the seemingly uniform size of the lead singers, all small dudes about 1.60m but with a voice and attitude that more than made up lack in vertical progress.

So after a nice series of openers come the band that everyone’s there for. Shai Hulud have been round for a while now, with lineup changes and threats of the band quitting occurring in between. The singer, Dutch (or Belgian, I´m not sure) raised Geert van der Velde doesn’t break the trend of small yet well-hard singers.

Let the chaos begin, unfortunately for the Shai boys the sound happens to be at its worst for their set. At first I thought I was me and maybe a little unfamiliarity with some of their work, but as soon as “set your body ablaze” kicked in it hit home just how bad the sound was. The characteristic guitar wails and flowing drum lines were just not there and Geert wasn’t coming across very clear over the mic, all thanks to an over zealous bass volume. Can’t understand why sound techs don’t spot this immediately and turn the fucker down. The muffle that came across the speakers at crescendos and build-ups was just plain wrong. If you had sound like that at home the first thing you’d say is ...”damn, my bass is too loud...better turn that shit down before I blow me speakers”. Apparently too much to ask of a sound tech. Fuckers.

So apart from the sound being a huge let down Shai pretty much kicked ass all night. Geert was very involved and interactive with the crowd, sometimes handing the mic over for fill-ins by various audience members. One female even got the thumbs up from Geert after roaring a verse louder than himself at one stage! Chris Cardinal on drums really impressed me with his seemingly effortless drumming style and the general energy and enthusiasm of the band earned them all bonus points.

(Review & Pics: Mark Gilchrist)