Kill The Rooster

support The National Shut Up + The Stradlins
author PP date 14/10/10 venue BETA, Copenhagen, DEN

Some of the regulars from the Danish punk rock scene were at it again last week, and as nearly always, the undersigned made a short trip to a local venue to check out whether a new song or two had sneaked into the bands' respective setlists. Only this time, an interview was also planned and executed with The National Shut Up at the helm. Kill The Rooster stole the healining spot against my initial expectations and the ordering found on the poster, but more on that in a moment. With 75 people confirmed for a 100-capacity (if that) venue at Copenhagen BETA, good pop punk times were to be had at least on paper. But once again, only a handful of people showed up, most of them to check out one of the bands and then disappearing into the Thursday night. Support all the bands, peeps, they all deserve it!

The Stradlins

The Stradlins are one of the newer punk rock outfits in Denmark, and unless they were lying, their vocalist has only recently relocated from New Zealand. Probably me just being gullible though, so take that with a grain of salt. I'd seen these guys once before about a year ago or so, playing a 150 capacity venue which was dishearteningly empty, so I wasn't terribly impressed. Tonight, they're a whole different band with a more intimate setting allowing their bassist's energy to catch on, eventually inducing a dozen or so others to move closer to the stage. Moreover, their brand of melodic punk rock suits perfectly to this sort of environment, what with the occasional nod towards southern hard rock blending in with high octane punk rock in the vein of The Dwyers nicely. They've just released a brand new EP, copies of which were lying everywhere in the venue, and from what I'm hearing it sounds very good. That's probably why their fans (friends?) stepped closer and engaged in a dance frenzy from halfway onwards of the set. We'll be seeing a lot more of these guys in the near future.

The National Shut Up

Next up were the hilarious pop punkers The National Shut Up, who usually spend about a third of their set making fun of each other, the crowd, and everything else in between. Today the remarks were somewhat less toned down than usual, but still funny enough to make you smile and not mind the time in between songs, though I'm not gonna refer to any here. Perhaps it is because the focus today is less on their New Found Glory-inspired, highly melodic pop punk than on the newer, smoother, shall I say more polished sound of "Smearing Lipsticks", "Satellites" (new song) and so forth, though the old high-energy hits were well represented as well. I'm guessing this is the reason why it took a long while for people to get into it - too long if you ask me - but towards the end, and especially after the Blink 182 cover and a few others that I didn't recognize, you had enough people moving to call it a proper crowd. As usual, nothing new or surprising from these guys, they're a solid pop punk band in a country where the genre isn't particularly popular. They just need to put out a proper EP in order to properly re-gain the interest from the crowd that at times has been high at some of the other venues around Copenhagen.

7

Kill The Rooster

Kill The Rooster were somewhat surprisingly at the top of the bill tonight. But based on their last couple of performances since the release of their self-titled EP, people should start expecting it to happen more and more often. They keep growing and growing in confidence each time they play, it seems, and they've quickly developed into a very formidable rock band both live and on record. It shines from their stage appearance, as the band are less afraid to move around than ever, a feature which inflicts itself into a rising number of attendees in the crowd. "Speed Soldier" and "Let Me Go" sound, if not outright monumental, at least superb tonight, leaving the undersigned singing along to every line together with a large portion of the crowd. It's hard to imagine how amateurish these guys looked like only fifteen months ago when I first had the chance to catch them live, because today, they look, sound and feel like a seasoned rock band, oozing of confidence and belief in their own songs. And no wonder, for they are some very good tracks all around.

8

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