Given that I spent the rest of the week battling zombie flu, I probably should’ve headed the warning symptoms and had an early night last Saturday, but my curiosity got the better of me and I headed to the Kimbo to check out two new bands, Wild Eastern Arches and the Future Primitives, performing their first and second ever shows respectively.
All I knew about Wild Eastern Arches was that one of their members was tattoo artist Raoul Goetze, whose work I’d admired at the Tattoo Convention a while back, and who I now know plays guitar really well too.
The band has an impressive list of influences (The Doors, The Black Angels and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club among others), their bluesy sound is really cool and they swapped instruments and added some nice sounds with a slide and keys which made them entertaining to watch too. I really wanted to like them more than I did, but for whatever reason, they just didn’t really grab me…
As far as debuts go though, I definitely think they’ve got potential and will be sure to check them out again, maybe they’ll grow on me with time.
The claustrophobic heat of the performance room left my brain feeling a bit melted, so I went to join everyone else on the balcony outside. It was really crowded, so there were a lot of witnesses to the mild interval drama that happened next – loud revving at the stop street below was followed by a dramatic shower of sparks as a bike skidded down the road, trailing its rider behind. Luckily, neither went far and the guy was able to get up and collect all the errant bits of bike (just one of the mirrors and the cubby thing) before dragging it to the side of the road and reassuring the crowd that rushed to his aid that he was fine. After holding our breath to see if he was okay, everyone near me on the balcony loudly agreed the guy was a total idiot.
Loud music starting coming from inside so I headed back in to watch The Future Primitives. They had quite a surfy sound, but that could’ve just been all the reverb…I thought they were pretty cool, though again nothing really jumped out at me and all the tracks were a bit samey. The crowd had significantly thinned too, which was unfortunate for the band but on the other hand, it made the temperature inside almost bearable.
I didn’t hang around after they finished, but the damage had been done and I was doomed to spend the next week battling some horrible lurgy. Blegh. I am glad I went though – it’s always exciting checking out new music.
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Wild Eastern Arches | The Future Primitives
