The Anvil, Bournemouth
Damn, I missed the opening band Mother Corona. So when the Neon Tigers come on I was down the front for their 70’s tinged boogie fuzz rock! Last time I saw ’em they were wearing eyeliner and fancy stage clothes, nothing wrong with that, but I much prefer the jeans and grungy checked shirts ensemble.
Anyway this isn’t a fashion show it’s a rock show and the Neon Tigers really know how to rock, throwing out massive tunes with carefree abandon. Only stopping to apologise about guitar feedback (I thought it sounded great), good set from an awesome local band.
Another resident band take to the Anvil stage next, it’s time for some downtuned heavy Doom. Skeleton just keep getting better, blasting out ace riffs, with powerhouse drumming and raspy singing. Heads were banging and the crowd really got into them. Good stuff!
Oxford’s own Desert Storm bought their particular brand of Stoner Metal to the Anvil. These guys have some kicking tunes in their arsenal. With their earlier stuff sounding like Clutch meets Down, they showed that their new material has a more progressive aggressive edge to it, reminiscent of the mighty Mastodon. With lots of technical breaks and giant rolling guitars, flattening everything in their path. A good band on the way to greatness.
Headliners Karma To Burn are the kings of the Riff. The West Virginians have penned some of THE most stoner rip-roaringly fuzzed-up and funked-up riffs in their stop-start career and that night they had them all out on show. The majority of the time K2B don’t do song names only numbers and as a result their set list looks like this: 8, 17, 19, 30, 3, 53, 32, 31, 15, 34, 7, 28. There was no vocalist just quality driven hard rock with a groove deeper than the Grand Canyon. Drenched in sweat and beer the crowd wander upstairs with massive grins plastered across their mugs.
Top class show!
Video
Words and photos by Dan O’Gara.
