Three local bands (I think), on a Friday night, meant I thought the attendance might be pretty sparse. But fortunately, once more I was wrong and there's a decent turnout to support everyone.
First were Ionic, who I only caught the last 2 songs by. Apparently it was their first gig. An all girl band, playing music that is more pop than anything else, and which to be honest, wasn't my thing. But two songs isn't really enough to judge, so I won't.
Next were Skeem, who brought more of a rock thing to proceedings. But it turned into very American current rock. Lots of rap vocals, American sounding, it was musically pretty good, but it feels too current and at the moment with not enough depth to stand out. There's lots of people doing this. It's technically good, and the vocalist does his chosen things well, but everyone who wants to show vocal variety these days is doing the Chino growl / whine with a Fred Durst rap. Personally, I would rather see a Patton take on things, and totally rip everything up. A band I need to listen to a tape of before I can totally decide.
Chasm finish things off. And it was a pretty mad strange gig. There were mistakes, and it was probably the most ragged I've seen them. But, and this to me is the strange, it was also the best I've seen them. The songs are really begining to settle in now, and I'm hearing the Far connection come through much more strongly than the Deftones thing. And to me, that's a good thing. Songs such as 54, Cold, and Almost There have lots of different things going on that it's easy to miss initally. Towards the end, a couple of girls decide it would be a good idea to stand onstage and well, just stand there. When handed the mike, they decide to just shout into it. Y'know, sometimes good ideas aren't quite as good as they seem now, are they. Almost There is the best song they have at the moment, and talk of good ideas, inviting anyone on to the stage for the final part of final track, Block, turns out not to be a great idea. The stage is swamped, Chris unplugs his guitar, and walks out of the room through where the crowd had been, with the rest of the band looking to see where he's gone. The end gets lost as everyone either stands on stage or, in some people's cases, hang from the ceiling. There again, maybe some ideas ARE good ideas.