Your Demise
Camden Underworld, London
27 February 2011
While the queue outside The Camden Underworld stretched around the corner and half way up the next road (and still growing!), Los Angeles band “Letlive” hit the stage and kicked off the evening in stunning fashion. Tight melodic grooves interweaved with some seriously solid riffage and everything was held together by a rhythm section to die for. Letlive laid the marker in fine style with a show that jumped, bounced and smashed its way into your psyche. It was emotional to the extreme on occasion with vocalist Jason Aalon tearfully wrestling his demons to the point of his own physical collapse. At the moment when he was on his knees, head thrown back and screaming at the heavens, you knew his passion was for real and that this evening was going to be one to remember.
With the emphasis on a more gritty dirty rock sound and open power-chords-a-plenty it was a heads down and go for it approach from Aussie mob “Break Even”. There was no lacking in power here and their more free-flowing style brought forth the evening’s first stage divers. Frontman Mark Bawden showed his class by making a real connection with this ever growing audience and the band’s no-nonsense and more upbeat approach to the music kept the energy high and helped whip the crowd into a very eager mob.
By the time California’s “Stick To Your Guns” kicked off their set The Underworld was rammed. A sold out crowd lapped up the ferocity coming from the stage with the band jumping and stomping their way through their quite considerable musical armoury. Even a twisted ankle injury stop for bassist Andrew Rose couldn’t halt the momentum and the building stream of stage divers. One bludgeoning hook after another poured forth but all too soon the onslaught ended and we were left with the satisfied feeling of being completely ‘done over’. Job done.
Major Kudos must be given to “Your Demise” for putting on a tour with three other such talented bands supporting them. Of course Your Demise are no slouches and their strong touring schedule coupled with a great album in ‘The Kids We Used To Be’ seems to be paying off judging by the buzz surrounding the evening. Expectations were high when Your Demise took to the stage and they plainly thrived on it. It didn’t take long before stage diving turned into mass stage invasions. Frontman Ed McRae’s announcement that a video was being recorded for their next release caused the biggest invasion of the lot with The Underworld stage the scene of chaos and the main air conditioning unit being damaged to the point where parts of it were swinging alarmingly from the ceiling above the pit. Mics and stands were knocked over, guitar leads got yanked out and the general amount of bodies at times hampered their playing but plainly this was never going to be a gig to see Your Demise musically at their best. Conditions didn’t allow it. It did, however, show a band who have grown considerably in stature with a vocalist who can lead the chaos and move this fine band onto the next level and beyond.
Review by Greig Clifford
