Friday 22 February 2002

I have, of late, been somewhat lax in my role as custodian of this fine site, and I am sorry to say, I may not have reviewed as many bands as one would wish. So, having set off from home in what I would ordinarily think of as good time, imagine my surprise upon arriving at the Yorkie to find that I'd already missed a support act. Apologies, then, to Bluey. Mind you, I had no idea that they were supposed to be playing, so you can't entirely blame me, can you? Or can you?

I did arrive, mercifully, in time to watch much of the set by Forenzic. I have watched Forenzic before, but this time I thought it might be best if I was sober enough to stand, and to be honest I was glad that I had - whilst not market leaders in earth shattering originality, they played with conviction and a genuine sense of purpose. For those of you who don't know (and, going by the size of the crowd there last night, I'd say that that includes most of you) Ver 'Renzics are a four piece, with two guitars, bass & drums. Yer man in the middle is the lead vocalist, and I suspect the main lyricist. You may well question my motivations for thinking that, since it was nigh on impossible to make out either his singing or between-song banter. Song titles came and went without me being any the wiser as to what they might have been - the only bit of banter I caught was the phrase "Thank fuck this is our next song", which almost made me think that the song was called "Thank Fuck". It wasn't, sadly.

Musically, I'm slightly hard pressed to come up with comparisons with which to describe Forenzic. I suspect that we don't listen to the same bands. Theirs was a kind of heavy-rock-meets-new-wave-y kind of thing, such as someone like Feeder or JJ72 might play; there was lumpy Sabbath-y riffs at some points, whilst at others the lead guitar playing was vaguely remniscient of The Edge. Which scared me slightly, since, when I looked around at one point, The Edge appeared to be standing behind me. He's not looking well, either.

Top marks, however, go to Forenzic's drummer. The man is an absolute monster of a player, and his music-as-a-contact-sport approach to the songs gave the band a much better feel and sense of attack than they otherwise would have had. Whilst the (presumably) despairing & fucked-off sounding vocals were meant to be the bitter focal point of the band, their rage was much better articulated (for me, at least) by a large semi-naked man beating the shit out of some wood and plastic. Well done.

There appeared to be some confusion amongst punters about Markus. The slight amount of "publicity" that had gone on towards tonight's show (exactly half of which could have been seen over at the What's On page) meant that the few generous souls who went upstairs for the final act thought they would be watching Forenzic. This is a damn shame, for whilst Forenzic had anger, rage and a fairly deft amount of range to their set, Markus had only a Rickenbacker bass (and to be fair, it's player) to recommend them. What started off promisingly with some Iggy-ish riffery, and that great farting-down-a-drainpipe trademark Rickenbacker sound underpinning it, quickly deteriorated. Markus' main focal point, again, is their lead singer, who stands there with his hair a-flapping in the breeze. He may have an album or two by the afore-mentioned Mr I Pop. You anticipate that he may be about to do something really crazee. And he does. He sings.

I am not, of course, in any position to comment upon the vocal short-comings of others, my own vocal perfomances in the past having been likened to those of a deranged and heartbroken sheep. However, it is my job here to write about the most significant features of the bands I've seen, and the most significant aspect of Markus is their singer. He managed to sustain the entire opening number with a single note to his credit. Annoyingly, I took down copious notes and quotes from the lyrics, and then rather unceremoniously lost them somewhere around the Alex, but take it from me, there were some lyrical gems in this set. Mainly basing their words around repetition, Markus take a lyric and batter it slowly to death. It is at times like this that you wonder if Bob Dylan regrets the monotone shopping list of "Subtereanean Homesick Blues", since it has been misapropriated by no end of musical magpies with their own litany of misery to get out. Markus take this concept a little bit further than most, since they appear to base the entire set around it.

Credibly, the band had done an excellent job of balancing out their sound, and I am surprised that the evidently fine set of ears that sorted their sound out could have made Forenzic so murky. Pity. More of a pity was that this only highlighted the shortcomings of their singer. The rest of the chaps ambled along behind him, each one, to a man, staring resolutely at the floor just in front of the monitors. The music was pleasant enough, but was lacking in the light and shade that the previous act had brought in with them, meaning that after a while one could not help but feel a bit bored of it. The only person who sounded like he was having a good time on stage was the bass player, who at least managed to inject a welcome spark of imagination in to his playing, and lift the riffs out of monotony. He was, for me at least, fighting a losing battle. I am sorry to say that I left before the end of their set. I did not appear to be the only person to do so.

Paddy Garrigan