Gig Review: Loom

Last Wednesday (11/12/13), I went to Hare & Hounds Pub to see Loom. In all honesty until quite close to the date of the gig I did think I'd purchased a ticket to see them next year and so was surprised to find it on my calendar for this month. Either way, having not already seen Loom I couldn't pass it up and so went along to the venue to check them out...


First up was Ghosts Of Dead Airplanes. Coincidentally, I came across some of their stuff on bandcamp a couple of weeks ago when I was peering through - didn't have a listen to them though so I was interested to see what they sounded like. The crowd was underwhelming to say the least - standing, there were (including me) maybe 5 people in total, but GODA still played their hearts out and gave us a show. They weren't particularly my cup of tea but they weren't terrible - some of their instrumentals were good and the bassist had a couple of standout moments. All in all a really good-natured and banter-filled band; just not something I think that I'll find myself listening to again in the future.
 
Next up was Curb. I am 90% sure that the drummer for this band is the lead singer in another brummy band - Wide Eyed - whom I actually wrote about last month here. Anyway, I digress... I had absolutely no idea what to expect from these guys so I just stood in anticipation. By then the room had started to fill up a bit more but hardly enough for what Curb were about to display. They absolutely killed their set! From beginning to end I was completely into them. Every song had me bobbing my head and some even had me jumping around a little. I can definitely see them getting big, I just hope that it happens sooner rather than later because they are something to see live.

After a short break, in which the DJ (who was on point the entire night) played a wealth of bangers, the next support band, Juice came on. Probably the most chilled out band of the night as people. They really made me feel like they were just playing to play and we were all just standing, watching, almost invading their space. They played a great set and did a good job at hyping the crowd up for Loom. However, there was no way that they could prepare us for the strange set that we were about to witness to be honest...

Whilst the band were setting up, I noticed Tarik Badwan's absence and thought "fair enough, I suppose as lead singer he doesn't really have much to set up". When the band were ready, Tarik stepped on stage, the band played something like the first four bars of the intro and cut it before Tarik said "Cheers" and pretended to walk off stage - making the audience laugh quite a bit. Then they took it from the top and thrashed through their opening track "Lizard". Inevitably there were some technical difficulties meaning that they had to stop for a little after the first song to sort them out. Tarik took this as a moment to go and chill so dropped his mic, walked off the stage and pushed through the crowd to go backstage.

Awkward side glances were exchanged throughout the room for what seemed like a lifetime before the band called Tarik back on stage and he appeared clutching a bunch of bananas. He then proceeded to start the next song "I Get A Taste", whilst ripping each banana in half and pelting them at the audience. More awkward side-glances exchanged, amongst the giggles. The rest of the set continued in this strange manner, Tarik performing all sorts of acrobatics like leaping from tables, chairs, the stage, etc... Knocking down the monitors several times, and doing a few rolly-pollies now and again. It was confusing and distracting but somehow kind of endearing. The set was immense all in all; thoroughly enjoyable - they played some of my favourites like "Acid King City", "Bleed On Me" and "Lice". At the end of it all, I had a great night, but Tarik is a little bit of a stage-douche.

Overall Rating - 7.5/10

Here are some pictures from the night...