Tribute To Nothing / dBH / Section 5

Derby Vic

March 16 1999


Section 5 were already doing their punk thing when I arrived, with their 2 vocalists and attitude.Not bad, just nothing outstanding from what I witnessed. And of course, there's the customary "silly" cover version. Tonight Section 5 decide to do The Carpenters' On Top Of The World.

dBH have had a lean couple of years. Pretty heavily touted, the debut album was a disappointment, to the extent that I've probably not listened to the album for a year or more. But I saw them last year, and there was a transformation. And it seems complete. The passive on stage dBH has been replaced by a hulking monster. Vocalist Andy is dredging up someone elses remains with some of his vocals. Basically, they've avoided the commercial route that some wanted to steer them down, ie. become a Kornabie, and gone for the noisecore. And it's impressive. More so because they still manage to slow things down, put in little changes and that sort of stuff. It's noise, but it's not. And one song, no idea what it was called, features a vocal that is a major change for the band. Bordering on a death metal phlegmridden thing. It's good. They need to try and reclaim the ground they've lost. Which means gigging and getting a new album out. But they might just be able to do it.

Tribute To Nothing. I'm so divided on this band. Put it like this, tonight was the best I've seen. For the first half of the set, the songs, though not instantly memorable, sounded good. Interesting. I was tempted to buy stuff. Then it becomes a bit nondescript before Enemy picks things up for the final run in. And that sums the band up for me. They have their moments. I wish they had more of them. It could just be that I need to buy the album and sit down with it for a while and familiarise myself with the songs. But with so much music out there, I sometimes need a band to justify to me why I should by it. They can do that live. But as I "ah and um" about the band live, so it is with the album. I mean, I could've bought it after the gig for a fiver. But I didn't. Maybe I should. The band need the lift to another level somehow, and I don't know where that's coming from. Because as dedicated as they are, they can't really survive can they on playing to 30 or 40 people a night.

I would like to say how good it was though to see members of Pitchshifter in the crowd giving support to a band that supported them on their last UK trek. Nice to see that at least they're able to make the short trip from Nottingham to Derby. Shame more people can't be as considerate as the bands isn't it?