Tribute To Nothing / Freekspert / Breed77.

Derby Vic

October 25

After last week's little trip to London to see the Biafra, I was in need of a return of the backpack wearing, wallet chain dangling baggy pants brigade to remind me what real punk rock was about. And fortunately this one provided it.

Sorry, slapped the wrists and have cut and pasted the words "I will not whinge and go on about this again at least until the next gig" 100 times.

Instead I'll say about how good openers Breed77 are. They are good. There painless enough. The single, The Message is a Pantera style escapade. Live there's a whole element of Korn thrown in as well, which tends to be enough to get my goat these days, but unlike Korn, Breed are throwing it around a bit. There's still those Pantera moments as well, along with a bit of singing, yep, singing, which reminds me of Keith Caputo. Plus there's more energy coming from vocalist Paul than the whole of Korn put together the last time I saw them live. Just need to get some more material out, and make sure that they follow some of the more adventurous, less cliched elements, and we could have something here.

Freekspert hail from Sheffield via the planet loony I think. Two vocalist, one who spends most of his time walking the ceiling while supported by people holding him there, and the other who spends all the gig in a doctors coat and mask and hat. They complement each other with the rock versus rap styles, backed by music that has its roots in heavy. Magik Shoes and Freeky Ones are the tracks I recognise, and in general it seems to go a little over the heads of most people. Once they can get more material out, and more gigs, then people may begin to be able to make sense of things. Until then, who knows?

Last time I saw Tribute To Nothing was at the same place, on the previous Skate & Slam tour. Or whatever the hell it's called. And then I think I said I should probably get something by them to familiarise myself with their material. And yep, someday I should. Just that at the moment I still haven't. So I don't know the songs, and part of the feeling that comes across is that it's a workmanlike performance. Nothing stands out, well, apart from the destruction of the ceiling following the call for mayhem before one song. Andy from dBh makes a guest appearance, as indeed do the rest of the band, when instead of an encore, Tribute declare themselves to be knackered, and as all of dBh are here, they are dragged onstage to perform an absolute guttural track, which if it was a song, I don't know which one it was. But in itself, it was more than Tribute managed. Like I said, I'm going to have to familiarise myself with their material.