In the City Report 2008 pg. 3
After Barn Owl, it was a simple case of popping across the road to Bar 38 to see The Grants. The Grants certainly from my perspective surprised me a little as I was expecting a melodic indie kind of guitar group. I wasn't expecting a band that sounds like one of my favourite bands, Purressance, with a very floaty guitar with a slightly lower voice and longer guitar solos which certainly headed into progressive rock in places.
The third song out of their 21 minute plus three song set, 'This Story', was both my and my friend, Dave's favourite, although we did feel they possibly over-egged the pudding a little towards the end of that song.
There should have being a break before the band at the venue we were going to next, but much to our surprise they came on a good 15 minutes earlier than advertised so we walked straight into their set. I must admit, I don't know much about this band aside from they are called Riot, Riot and they were recommended by a friend of a friend. I think they were advertised as a cross between The Dead Kennedys and the Who. Certainly listening to them I heard that and also, dare I say it, The Clash and a bit of Green Day. While they were not really my cup of tea, I know Dave really enjoyed their raw power and short songs (by my reckoning there must have been 10 or 11 songs in their 22 minute set). Dave actually came out of the venue saying they were one of the best bands he had seen in years, which is as good as praise a band can hope to hear from anybody.
We deservedly took a break after that and both had a nice cheeseburger. After that we carried on and walked down to Walkabout to watch a band called The Krak. We watched about two songs before walking straight out as their lead singer totally annoyed me with their very bad sub bis quirky indie pop.
It was back to Bar 38 for a quick drink then and we went over to Bedlam to watch the set by 6 Day Riot. You may think, considering the name of the band included Riot in the title and we had already seen the very punk-based Riot Riot, that we were headed for another punk or indie rock band. You would be completely wrong on both counts.
Neither of us were expecting a six piece band who played all kinds of instruments (trumpets, harmonica, keys, violin, double bass, drum, and at least four versions of acoustic and electric guitars) while dressed in clothes which may well have come from the 1920s American South. Certainly their set did touch on very old, traditional country in places but it was far beyond that and really hard to catagorize. We did hear a whisper from one or two people in the audience that it was almost Arcade Fire-ish. While I can hear it to a degree, 6 Day Riot's throw everything in the kitchen sink approach makes it very hard to pin them down, but perhaps that is the beauty behind them. And, of course, mostly excellent songs.
After two nights of rushing around, the third night was a lot more mellow, with just me and Phil setting off a lot, lot later and only seeing three acts, but three quality acts.
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