The Sword at Rock City - 25/03/08 March 26, 2008
Posted by Sharny in : Entertainment, Fun, Music , trackbackLast night me and three friends went to see The Sword live at rock city. We grabbed a the nearest bus to all of us and got there at about 7.30pm and waited a few minutes to be let in. There wasn’t a huge gathering of people outside and although I didn’t know before hand this confirmed my suspicion that it would be in the basement. This isn’t hugely surprising but at the same time Freya is on guitar hero 2 so there was always the possibility of a larger turnout.
Anyways, we headed in and into the basement (if you’ve never been there it’s not really a basement but its got a low ceiling and is quite compact and is primarily used for metal so I guess that is how it got it’s name, don’t really know) and the band merchandise was to the right as we went in, something I haven’t seen before. We just hung around for a while waiting for the first band, Black Cobra, to come on. When they did, we were a bit surprised to find out they were only a two man band. Musically, they were OK, not the worst support band I’ve seen but not particularly good either. Essentially we all agreed that they should just leave out vocals and be instrumental because the lyrics are totally inaudible over the screechy vocal style, which is pretty horrible within itself. Maybe those vocals are part of the sludge genre, I don’t really know because it’s not something I listen to generally.
When they went off we took the opportunity to move forward a bit and waited again for Saviours to get ready. Having listening to Saviours a bit more before coming to the gig I was expecting better of them than Black Cobra and aside from a few technical difficulties (which meant we heard the first two riffs of their first song three times) they didn’t dissapoint. Again, after they left the stage we moved forward a bit more to be nearer the action for The Sword.
It didn’t take long for them to set up and they started with a song I didn’t recognize, which was kind of the trend for the night. They played a lot of stuff I hadn’t heard before, which is kinda surprising given that I thought I owned their only album. As it happens, it’s all from their new album, apparently released at the beginning of April (even though it seems to be available for buy and download on iTunes right now) which I intend to buy on CD when I can.
In all honesty, I would have liked to hear more stuff I recognized as I can get into it a lot easier and really feel the groove but they did play a few goodies such as Barael’s Blade and Iron Swan. Freya was saved for the encore, which started with a cover song that neither me nor my friends knew. They got a bit of heckling for that choice which is understandable. I did like how Freya was introduced: “Now for a song by the other greatest band from Texas” which confused me for a few seconds before they started off into the first riff.
Overall it was a pretty good night, my only real complaint being that I would have liked to see more of The Sword and less of the other bands (although I did enjoy some of Saviours). There were also some weird issues where the guitars didn’t quite have the oomph that I would expect, the sound just seemed to fall apart at some bits and it sounded a bit odd. I don’t think it was the fault of the band or a lack of skill on their part I think it was a pure technical thing, whatever they used to obtain the sound on the record probably couldn’t be done live for whatever reason. I picked up a t-shirt on the way out which I’m wearing as I type and I’d definitely go and see them live again, hopefully at a point where they don’t have much new material and I’ve managed to soak the new album into my brain.
Tagged as: Entertainment, Fun, Metal, Music, Seen Live
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?