Siamese Fighting Fish

support Trusted Few
author TL date 15/03/08 venue Stengade, Copenhagen, DEN

After having traded words with Mirza of Siamese Fighting Fish, over my review of his band's performance at the Melody Makers Contest, I decided that there was no more sensible way to settle our differences in opinion than by going to see the band again, this time in a less competitive environment as they play a gig in Stengade 30 with Concrete Flowers and none other than the band I've come to love to hype, my friends from Trusted Few. The order of names tonight has been decided by how many tickets the bands have individually been able to sell, and always the underdogs, this means Trusted Few are the first to get a chance at impressing tonight's solid showing of curious crowd members.

Trusted Few

I get to chat to frontman Johan before the set, and he warns me that a cold may have gotten to his throat. During the show however, that never seems to be the case, and I'm am at a loss of words, when trying to say something I already haven't about the performance of him and his band. Energetic and confident as always, it takes all of two songs to get a happy mosh pit going in one side of the floor, with at least a dozen kids flying happily through the air at any given moment for the rest of the show - An impressive feat given that the setlist is longer the ones the band usually have the opportunity to play, and that half of it is made up of songs, that only people who've recently seen the band live, has had the chance to hear. Sure bassist Andreas' mic stand is knocked over (okay, okay, it was me, I'm sorry) and sure he loses his pick once, but there's not a break in the fun, and the only people who does not seem to have a good time are those hanging in the back with expressions on their faces clearly stating that the wonders of heavier music and throaty vocals remain mysteries to them. In short, presenting Trusted Few with the opportunity to play a full set in front of an audience where more than a handful seems to give a damn is an equation that result in a very positive result, and if you won't take my word for it, take AP's, he was as impressed as I tend to be by these guys.

Siamese Fighting Fish

Now it's time for tonights main assignment, namely finding out what I didn't grasp in Siamese Fighting Fish's performance last time I saw them, and before long I reckon' I've accomplished that mission. First off, these guys are tight as _fuck_. It's rare to see a band in this venue that seems so in control and well-sounding as SIFIFI does tonight. There's simply not a beat skipped or a note missed anywhere in their performance and they perform their songs with a passion to boot, rockin' out in the most appropriate of ways. In the center of their show stands Mirza himself, spitting out vocal work of impressive volume and consistency. His strength and presence is the highlight of the band's ability, unfortunately, it is also in his work I find the one thing I still have sort of a problem with before I will totally embrace SIFIFI's music. While Mirza does what he does with unfailing quality, it's the opinion of me and a handful of other crowd members I talk to after the set, that it would be ten times more fascinating if he varied his expression a bit more. It seems that there's a tendency to prolong the final word in (and please get this exaggeration) each and every line of most songs, and after a while it makes things blend together in an unfortunate way. It might be because I haven't had the opportunity to let SIFIFI's songs grow on me (as they have only one track available on Myspace), but there's only three or four tracks that really get me interested tonight, and it's a damn shame because you'd be hard pressed to put any fingers on their capabilities. However, while the terminal impact of their arsenal is lacking, I have to admit that I'm a good deal more impressed on the second time around and I can't find any reason not to advice everyone to check out their stuff once they get some of it on record.

7

Regrettably, circumstances force me to leave Stengade30 while Concrete Flowers are still only playing their second song, and obviously I don't feel that one and a half song is enough to base an objective review on. So as a replacement, here's some shameless promotion of the band's myspace page.

myspace.com/concreteflowers

Now go check them out so I don't have to feel bad about myself!

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