Uploaded to Aural Innovations: February 2004
I met up with the band at the rehearsal room and we waited for the van to come pick up the gear and then we drove to the venue. I had never been here before and I have to say this is the coolest club I have seen in Denmark. The place has a great stage, multiple levels, nice artwork, a huge rock climbing wall and great sound. It is a little out of town, but only 20 minutes on the train and the club sits right next to the station. It was really too bad that so few people made the journey out here to check out the show. The band did the soundcheck and I watched the soundman to try to learn a few things. The band had a good soundcheck and then the other band, Mermaid's Purse, showed up. They were nice guys. I had never heard the band before and hoped that they would pull in a lot of friends.
Anyway, after a lot of sitting around and chatting and drinking and smoking, the few people trickled in around 10. Mermaids Purse started playing at about 10:10 and there were about 30 people here. Really too bad as the venue holds 450 and is a really great place. They had a great sound with two guitars. One was tuned to a nice heavy sound and the other to a very tinny distorted (Thurston Moore) like sound. The vocalist was good and reminded me of someone but I can't place it. The opening two songs, "Sense of Sin" and "New Life", were really excellent songs. It seemed after for the next several songs the band became glued to the stage and had lost all their stage presence and the next 4-5 songs all sort of sounded alike. The band seemed to recapture themselves for the last few tracks. The lyrics are pretty potent about personal experiences and very real to life. A pretty cool band to look out for here in Denmark!
Set List: Sense of Sin, New Life, Leave Me, For You, Whose to Blame, My Busyness, How U Fail, Family Infamy, Don't Forget, Before my Eyes
At about 11:30 it was time to fly out into space with Gas Giant. They decided to open with the acoustic and title track from their latest CD, Mana. This song has only been played live 3 times and is always evolving, including tonight, with drummer Tommy playing the congas. The band is in good spirits, and Jespers voice is sounding great but still a little strained. Stefan sings a cool scat vocal and gets big cheers from the audience when he finishes. "There's One" starts the space rock journey which will continue for the next hour. The sound is fantastic and the guitar very loud. "Phantom Tanker" is played a bit fast but a great groovy rocker. I wished for some more delay on Jesper's voice like on the CD but he sings it pretty dry these days. "Dragons Cave" is next and from here on Stefan turns up the delay and the show gets really spaced out. A really cool version is played and Jesper plays the conga drums. It appears they are going to go into a new jam at the end as Stefan plays a really cool riff but the rest of the band does not take off on it and he lets it die. Too bad. This floats into "Green Valley", a song that is rarely played live. It is fantastic but the band doesn't really seem to know how to end it this night. The brand new song that was recorded at a studio in München in November is debuted in Denmark (It was played at the München concert as well). This is a short rocker kind of like Fu Manchu meets Iron Maiden. We now head back into space with "Back on the Headless Track". Stefan plays the coolest delay guitars on this track and Thomas is totally laying down the great bass line that holds it all together! "Never Leave This Way" is next and for the next 16 minutes we get some great guitar playing, great drumming and just all around fun. Very cool stuff. The band ends with a short version of their classic track, "Too Stoned". A really fun night, just too bad so few people showed up for the show.
Set List: Mana, There's One, Phantom Tanker, Dragon's Cave, Green Valley, Mama Cool, Back on the Headless Track, Never Leave this Way>Jam, Too Stoned
Visit the Mermaid's Purse web site at: http://www.mermaidspurse.dk.
Visit the Gas Giant web site at: http://www.gasgiant.dk.
Reviewed by Scott Heller