Barry's Views

Review:

Tantrum

I have seen this young Lancaster-based power trio twice and tonight they were even better than before, they seem to be improving by leaps and bounds. They mentioned they were currently recording which could account for the real edge in their performance tonight, despite a patchy audience turnout. Jamie Walker is a wonderfully fast and tastefully creative guitarist (you don't always get the two things together, unfortunately) and is really developing his vocal presence too. His two sidekicks, Torsten Christenson on bass and Luke Paget on drums, stay with him every inch of the way and add their own creative touches from time to time - great fluent drum solo on the final number from Luke!
Their new material was excellent, drawing in many of their musical influences, and they gave an original spin to standards like Hendrix's Voodoo Child - superb, this one, as was a convincing slow blues earlier. They ended with a great original number called 'No Chance' which made use of a really catchy Bo Diddley rhythm and the dirty-edged surf guitar on the last one capped it all - Jamie reckoned this came from Rage Against The Machine ... these guys really do listen to everything and it's all there in their varied, free-flowing, natural style. This is another band not to miss when they appear at August's River and Blues Festival at the Britannia. Talking of which, you must catch Sweden's Little Jenni and the Blue Beans there - another explosive act who many bands would hate to have to follow ...

Dave Kingsbury