SINHA NADA – 22/11/2008

Problems I had with the show – This was the first time I attended a gig at The Blackout (Swiss Residence Hotel, Kandy). It’s a nice place, nice setting and atmosphere for a show, but the acoustics are simply terrible and sounds no matter how good wont sound clear due to the way the stage is set and the way the club has been built. My advice to any band who wants to organize a rock gig there is, DON’T.

            My other problem was the sound guy. This guy while drinking at the mixer, acting like he knew what the bands were doing kept nodding his head to the music and pressing all sorts of buttons and turning all sorts of knobs and completely messing up the sounds of the bands in a place that already had horrible acoustics. And he didn’t listen to anyone who tried to tell him what to do. Or he pretended to listen but didn’t do anything.

 

Bands I didn’t see due to me not being in the venue at the time – Brazen Hearth and Drop City. My sincerest apologies to these guys. Wish you all the best for your future endeavours and looking forward to seeing you guys performing soon.

 

Moving on, I walked in to the venue when the band ‘Shut Down’ was playing. Think it was the latter half of their set. This is one of the newer bands to emerge from kandy and I think a lot of them are still in school. A metallica cover band, at least that’s what they’re doing currently. I hope to see these boys working on their own music in the future. Nothing wrong with playing Metallica of course since they’re a kick ass band and they weren’t playing any new songs from albums such as St. Anger as far as I heard.  The songs I heard from these guys were “For whom the bell tolls’, ‘One’ and ‘creeping death. They do have a lot to work on, but they show an incredible amount of promise. The frontman/guitarist has a good voice and although he doesn’t go nuts on stage there is a lot of personality in him and he addressed the crowd very well. I was especially impressed with the lead guitarist. This dude is really young. Still in school and out of the band he seemed to be the most competent in handling his instrument. The solos were quite tight. The main drawback in the band was the drummer. I’m not saying that he can’t improve but especially in the more difficult songs such as ‘one’ and ‘creeping death’ there were a lot of issues with timing and transitions from section to section and there were parts where he didn’t seem entirely sure of what was going on. All in all it was an alright set. Keep working on your stuff, practice more and everything will be cool. Hope to see a tighter Shut Down whenever their next performance maybe.

            Next band to take the stage was ‘Spectra Red’, another new band to pop out of Kandy in recent times. These guys too show a lot of promise. I wouldn’t really know how to label they’re genre but think its kind of a mix of Death Metal and a little bit of Black metal. The vocalists growling skills especially on his lower register was quite impressive. The bassist and the guitarists were all pretty tight with their instruments. My main focus during this bands set was the drummer. Very good with his feet and has a lot of potential to become a really good drummer if he keeps practicing. In my opinion what he needs to work on is his coordination. Although the feet are very fast and the double bass work was impressive, his hands seemed kind of unsure. I think he should work more on coordinating his hands and his feet together. All in all Spectra red played tight set and I enjoyed listening to them thoroughly. Good luck to you guys as well and hope to see you guys playing again soon.

            The next band to play was also the last act from Kandy for the night. ‘Forsaken’ opened their set with an original titled ‘Destiny’. Here’s the deal with forsaken. The last time I saw them playing they had a lot of issues. The guitar tones were not controlled enough and I had a huge issue with the drummer who seemed to be playing without any feeling whatsoever. But it’s quite obvious that these guys have been practicing hard. Frontman Delaines vocals have improved and his lead playing too was really leagues ahead of when I last saw them live. The drummer actually seemed to be a more into what he was doing so it was obvious that he too has been working on his drumming. Out of the Kandy bands I saw that night forsaken was without a doubt the tightest. Their cover of metallicas’ ‘Motor Breath’ was pulled of extremely well and got the crowd going nuts. Apart from the cover, they played an all original set and I was truly proud watching them especially since I spoke to delaine after their last performance and told him what I thought the problems were. Kudos to Forsaken for an awesome set and waiting eagerly for their recorded material which Delaine promised will be out soon.

            The next band for the night was ‘Merlock’ A Thrash/Power with a hint of Prog act from Colombo. They opened with an original titled ‘Chamber of Pain’, then moved to another original titled ‘Crimson Skies’. Merlock have been around for a couple of years now and their sound and quality has improved a lot. The only problem with their set was vocalist/guitarist Dumidus’ vocals could barely be heard and despite me and a lot of others telling the guy at the mixer to increase his mic volume, he was not heard that well. Niroshan, the boy on the skins was very impressive. I remember seeing him ages ago and his drumming always to me seemed to be on quite a narrow frame. Meaning he would play the double bass well and there would be no issues with his hands, but not a lot of variation. But this show proved to me that he too was working hard. He played with a lot of feel and passion and he has also branched out from that narrow mindset which I was talking about earlier. The highlight of merlocks set was their cover. ‘Reign in Blood’ by slayer, which I was doubting that they would play properly was pulled off with minimum glitches. The other noteworthy fact was the guest appearance by Funeral in Heaven frontman Chaturanga Fonseka who stepped in for vocals for the slayer cover. Merlock too was better than when I saw them last. Tight set, awesome stage act, good work guys.

            The last band for the night was none other than Melodic Death Metallers ‘Fallen Grace’. This band has always been one of my favourites in the scene and they always deliver. But there were issues with their sounds and like Merlocks performance, the Vocals couldn’t be heard properly a lot of the time. They played originals such as ‘Preach me dark’, ‘scattered grief, Putrid remains and ‘The illusionist’, all of which are favourites of many a metal head in the country. Covers by FG were ‘Ace of spades’ by Motorhead, which got everyone going bonkers and When they were asked for an encore, they played their own rendition of that timeless classic ‘Smoke on the water’ By Deep purple. Fallen Grace provided a fitting climax for the end of the show and left all of us feeling rather proud that Sri Lankan heavy Metal was moving from strength to strength.

            In a nutshell, the Show was certainly enjoyable, but the as I mentioned at the beginning, the venue is not the most appropriate for a gig. Best of luck once again to the All the new bands from Kandy and also the boys from Colombo. Hope to bang some head again soon to all of your music.

 

Long Live Sri Lankan Heavy Metal

 

The flame has been lit, it will keep burning.

~ by rebelmaniac on November 24, 2008.