I went to a good gig on Saturday at Nottingham,’s Rescue Rooms.
A while back I saw a band on one of the music channels – I think it was on Kerrang, in one of its brief moments away from promoting rap and hip hop. They were called Evarose. This was the song I saw – it’s called “Best Left Alone”. I was immediately taken by the song and I put them on my “watch” list”.
I was duly (well, eventually) notified that they were coming to Nottingham and so I bought tickets. They were support for another band called “Straight Lines”. Also supporting were Summerlin – who I saw a few months ago at the CJD gig.
Summerlin aren’t really my cup of tea! They could be – there’s no question that they have talent – but every song they play sounds the same, which isn’t helped by the fact that you can’t hear their lyrics. Of course, that might have had something to do with the acoustics – small rooms with a stage about 6 metres by 5 are never going to be acoustically pure – but Rock City (and the attached Rescue Rooms) is like a rabbit warren, with getting on for a dozen such locations.
What was interesting though was that as the sets moved from Summerlin, to Evarose, and then to Straight Lines, there was a noticeable progression from raw to polished. That’s not to say that Evarose weren’t polished – it was just an overall impression I got.
Evarose have a pretty good stage presence (as good as it can be on a tiny stage), and although a couple of their videos make them look very teen-poppy their sound is quite heavy.
I’m not going to go into individual song details, even though I bought Evarose’s existing CD after I’d seen them on the TV. All I will say is that if you get a chance you’ve got to go and see them. If they get the right break, they’re a band that will definitely go places.
The annoying thing is that CJD are also a band in the same position – and yet the gig at the Rescue Rooms (well, two actually, as they said they’d had a bummer there when I saw them last year supporting The Darkness) – was a washout because of the low turnout.
And yet every crap rap act going seems to get air time.