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Aereogramme, Eska and Degrassi

Posted: June 9th, 2002, by Marceline Smith

A bill of Aereogramme, Eska and Degrassi was not to be missed so miss it I did not. My timekeeping has become worryingly good which meant I was able to see every second of Degrassi. I’d rather have missed the first song though as it was pretty dull and had me regretting my keenness. Luckily things perked up massively and the rest of the set was ace. Catchy melodic indie rock with enough rock power and weirdy keyboard bits to make things very interesting indeed. You’ll be hearing more of Degrassi I predict as they’re doing pretty well for themselves. They’ve got a record out tomorrow I hear which I shall consider purchasing.

Eska ruled. I love Eska. While watching Eska last night it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen them live in ages which is completely useless of me as they’ve played live in Glasgow more than ever lately. The other thing that struck me was that most of the people applauding with enthusiasm were not people I recognised. Yes, Eska finally have a proper fanbase, thanks no doubt to their high profile touring of late with the likes of Idlewild and Biffy Clyro. Hurrah! But enough of the musings. Eska were a super mighty rockout power force and worth the entrance fee on their own. Being a support slot it was a wee bit on the short side but we got all the tunes from the recentish EP, a dusted off still catchy as hell Goodby To Victories and then they nonchalantly finished off with one of their epic instrumentals. The quiet beginnings started the audience chattering but they were soon silenced by the thick cut riffs bludgeoning their eardrums. Eska have more riffs in one song than some bands make a career out of and they’re all a bit askew and ready to turn on a sixpence at a micro second’s notice. Eska used to be Scotland’s best kept secret but we’re starting to feel guilty of such hoarding. Be good to them though or we might take them back and barricade all roads in.

I was hoping to be impressed by Aereogramme as I’d kind of mislaid them since they overawed me at the Chemikal Underground birthday party gig a couple of years back. The recorded output never seemed to match my impressions of them live and now I’m beginning to think I hallucinated the ChemU gig as I couldn’t find anything to get excited about in their set last night. After four songs left me unmoved I gave up and went home. I still think I’m missing something with Aereogramme so I’m not ready to dismiss them completely. It’s just worryingly easy to picture them in a glossy sepia tinged video, playing in a crumbling gothic church with overplayed emotional imagery. Thankfully they’re in the good hands of Chemikal so I hope to prove myself wrong about Aerogramme sometime.



Marceline Smith

Marceline is the fierce, terrifying force behind diskant.net, laughing with disdain as she fires sharpened blades of sarcasm in all directions. Based in Scotland, her lexicon consists of words such as 'jings', 'aboot' and 'aye': our trained voice analysts are yet to decipher some of the relentless stream of genius uttered on a twenty-four hour basis. Marceline's hobbies include working too much and going out in bad weather.

http://www.marcelinesmith.com

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