The Suffrajets / State of Affairs / Third Floor Incident

You have to hand it to a band who will travel six hours just to play a specific venue in the middle of nowhere, it’s always a gesture that deserves to be fully repaid. Tonight The Suffrajets do just that, despite playing in Hull the next day, they made the long journey up to the North-East of Scotland to play the incredibly intimate Arbroath Viewfield.

Sadly, the venue wasn’t filled to the brim, around 150 people were probably in the room, the majority arriving after the support acts. The people that were there from the get-go were in for a treat.

Local boys Third Floor Incident were the first band on, yet again poor organisation managed to kill off the suspense for the first lot of music for the night, an hour long wait was far too long to wait in a hot and noisy room.

The band themselves were a real surprise, their Ramones style punk was incredibly tight, with some outstanding guitar solos, the rhythm and guitar section are clearly very talented. However, it must be said that what lets them down is their vocals and lyrics, throwing in every single cliché in the book (the first songs lyrics seemed to consist of “We want to get drunk” and a lot of filler), lots of pointless soundbites of lyrics rather than something that flows and progresses.

The vocals were far from spectacular, their frontman is no natural singer, and it does show and drags down the whole performance. A real lack of range makes each song blend into the next, which is a real shame. If they can find a talented vocalist and lyricist, this band could be a minor revelation. As it stands, they sound like your average pub band, which is a lot less than they deserve to be.

The venue was extremely quiet at the start, with possibly the first ever three-man moshpit being the only ones to take to the dancefloor. I’m not sure if they’re going to be reading this, but well done guys, it was top quality entertainment!

Thankfully, the crowd only had to wait another half hour before Fife band State of Affairs played their half hour set. This is the third time I’ve seen the band play live, and just as I thought I knew what to expect from them, they managed to put in a completely different set from the last two times they’ve supported bands at local gigs. The excellent Buzzcocks cover was dropped in favour of some newer and heavier material, the EP was played through again, and generally everything was very tight and sounded much fuller than before.

They have a couple of songs that could do with having a verse and chorus lopped off the end, but songs such as “You’re Not Listening” suggest that they have considerably bigger things ahead. Their punk is heavy enough to keep the moshpit happy, yet manages to be melodic enough to be instantly accessible. The only problems with the set are things that can be ironed out with hardened touring, the band sometimes struggle to fully engage with the audience, but hopefully time should see this improve.

As the venue started to fill up more, full credit must go to the sound technician, putting on a selection of cheesy classics like “La Bamba” seemed to get the crowd going, it got people up to the dancefloor and in the mood for the main band. It may sound like an irrelevance, but it goes to show that the minor things at a gig can make all the difference.

When The Suffrajets bound onto the stage at 11pm, they launch straight into Going Nowhere, an excellent opening number that has something that makes it instantly likeable, and when guitarist and vocalist Alex Gillings notices some empty space at the front of the crowd, she launches herself off stage and throws herself about.

Despite the crowd being mildly apathetic during the first song or two, showmanship like that wins the crowd over, and it’s not long before a sizeable area are all moshing and dancing, and generally living up to the reputation that the Viewfield has built – tiny venue, wild crowds.

Upcoming single “Worthy” (out on the 26th June) is disposed of mid-set, and goes through the quiet-loud-quiet dynamics most attributable to late 80’s/early 90’s punk, and “Call The Police” fantastically sees their merchandise salesman take vocals, and actually do fairly well.

The band are very much a fun band to see live, their lyrics may be your typical angsty lyrics that a young audience can relate to, their music is fairly simple start/stop and loud/quiet two-and-a-half minute punk, they may not lyrically be able to convey stories as well as Conor Oberst, and they may not be as deeply compelling and complex as Pink Floyd, but what they carry throughout their live show is sheer escapism, playing loud music to get people dancing and forgetting about their troubles, and that is just as honourable a pursuit as any other.

It’s slightly disappointing that the band didn’t manage to fill the venue, for making such an effort to play to a crowd that don’t really get much in the way of well known bands, they deserved to be repaid more. However, as closing number “Sold” draws to a close, the people that did make an effort to turn up make an effort to dance and show their appreciation as much as possible.

Overall, tonight seen one performance which has potential, one performance which sees an extremely promising young band take another step up, and a fantastic rock and roll show to finish up. Deep it may not be, but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone complaining.

FUTURE GIGS

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