ORANGE GOBLIN, SOLACE, EL THULE
Friday night and a busy old sweaty Underworld met Italian threesome El Thule with appreciation. In fact as soon as they came on the bar emptied to their wall of noise which sounded, part psyche, part stoner and surprisingly part grunge. This was certainly a display of crushing riffs, booming drums and came at us like a garage band that had blown the roof off their garage. Despite the fact that this was full on and in your face there were still people uber-coolly smoking with arms folded on the front row. Still the band were getting big drunken bellows of appreciation between songs.
Brand new album ‘Green Magic’ was apparently being launched this very night but it appears that this isn’t due out for some time so guess this was just a live interpretation. A song introduced possibly as ‘Planet Of The Monolith’ pretty much entranced and culminated in a fast fuzzy fury that literally took heads off like crystal meth and liquid LSD taken together. Singer Mr Action certainly did as name suggests with frog jumps around the stage and wanking his guitar off like a bitch on heat. This was certainly a smoking performance in more ways than one.
Finding info on Solace was a mission with 19 pages of bands with that name on MySpace. I knew I had them when I saw the web domain www.diedrunk.com though. Hailing from New Jersey this lot have been around for over a decade and it looked as though some of them haven’t seen a razor in that time either. First song ‘Khan’ from an album apparently called AD still to be released was a chugga chugga biker blues fest (well it’s a description) that certainly got our motors running. Boozy and bluesy and reeking of dope smoke the crowd of the now pretty packed venue certainly were enjoying this lot. We even got a stage diver!
Fists were being banged into the air and it seemed as though everyone was now well and truly awake. This was now a party atmosphere, all that was missing were the fairy cakes, probably just as well as who knows what they would have been laced with. Hefty numbers such as the intriguingly entitled ‘Whistle Pig’ had guitars squealing so much they virtually flew off the stratosphere and certainly did some very odd things to the ears. By the time they finished with ‘King Alcohol’ it seemed only natural to show our support by heading off back to the bar.
OG mothefucker! Nope sorry wrong gig, this was not Ice T but time for Orange Goblin. I blame the ladies serving test tubes of Jagermeister for the confusion but watching the Gob sober is akin to jumping out a plane without a parachute. Singer Ben Ward is all hair, height and elbows which made him impossible to get a decent photo of. It was made really tricky as well by the bodies packing the dance floor as they opened up with ‘Red Web’ I had expected them to be playing the majority of new and excellent album ‘Healing Through Fire’ but as it wasn’t quite out yet so I guess they decided to throw just a few cuts amongst the numbers that everyone knew and loved.
Having seen this lot loads over the years many times even when they were known as ‘Our Haunted Kingdom’ its great to see them having evolved to a band playing packed venues and even being on the line up to Download. Certainly beats those dodgy back street pubs we used to watch them in. Musically they were on full form here tonight. New number ‘They Come Back (Harvest Of Souls)’ bass heavy and angry, blew its way out the speakers with guitarist Joe Hoare giving it his all with some scorching licks. Decade old numbers like the classic ‘Aquatic Fanatic’ were certainly a good old Magic Carpet Ride back in time (actually wish they had done that one but you can’t have it all).
It was safer to watch from the balcony and try to keep up with Chris’s drumming. As for the dance floor by now it was a seething mass of doomed souls. At times they almost sounded like stoner punks there’s a touch of Black Flag in the sound of some of the songs that’s for sure. Another new one ‘The Ballad Of Solomon Eagle’ stomped and despite not many knowing this I guess, it certainly went down well.
‘Some You Win Some You Lose’ was a number that everyone not tumbling over others heads and trying to aim for the stage could sing along to and ‘Blue Snow’ certainly didn’t calm anyone down. “The dream is over,” well maybe for now but only till the next time Orange Goblin rocked, simple as.
Pete Woods
LONDON UNDERWORLD 11/05/07