: : Gigs - 3 Colours Red : :

It was a little worrying to turn up and find out that the gig had been moved from the upstairs main room into Rock City’s Basement venue, but in the end it was definitely for the best. Raucous rock in a small, sweaty, enclosed space, or a vacuous draughty cavern? Well, exactly.

Hollywood Ending aren’t very big on stage presence yet, although these are fairly early days for the band. Clearly looking a little uncomfortable in front of the few brave early arrivals, they nevertheless have a clear idea of what they want to do and do it with aplomb. It’s just that what they do is, well, rather unadventurous – and if you aren’t going to bring any new ideas to the table then you just have to be Fucking Good when you get there. Unfortunately, Hollywood Ending aren’t Fucking Good. I’d bet my thick-rimmed glasses that some of the band at least have more than a passing liking for Brand New, except Hollywood Ending don’t quite have that band’s songwriting ability. What we are left with, then, is a hearts-on-sleeve alt. rock very-US-radio-friendly-emo band with a few good hooks, obligatory 3 note solos and just about enough oomph to get the crowd nodding along.

Finns Bitch Alert, on the other hand, are very big indeed on stage presence. Especially the slightly unfortunately named ‘Heinie’, a girl with a guttural, dirty voice built for belting out guttural, dirty rock’n’roll songs. She has outlandishly coloured hair, does weird things with her eyes while she sings, and spends all of her time on stage looking like she really doesn’t know she’s singing in front of an audience – instead one could easily be persuaded she was just having a laugh with some mates. Add this ultra-coolness to a batch of catchy, slightly Nirvana-esque tunes (oh yeah, she can’t half pull off a melodic hook as well) and you have a damned enjoyable gig experience. Had I not been initially put off by their crap name (when I then saw they had a female lead singer I was a little worried I was in for some duff ‘we’re not very good...

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