Easter All Dayer Mad Ferret Preston

Easter is possibly the best holiday weekend around. Without the stress of Christmas and New Year, the Easter weekend offers people to opportunity to get well and truly blotto without having to face the consequences of work or family. Certainly something to be thankful for.

So this weekend I traveled back to Preston, the old homestead. Nothing's changed. The Mad Ferret is easily the best and most popular venue in the fledgling city. Its tight and informal and generally provides an ideal atmosphere for watching some great live music, as well as its fair share of useless local acts. Todays line up is a mix of out of town bands vearing towards the heavier end of the spectrum, so thankfully the the quality of this very high.

First band I catch are the Whip Hand. The sound is powerful for a three piece but I have to admit to only keeping one ear on them, they seemed a little bereft of tunes and hooks, but they haven't been going for too long so I'll let them off.

To The Bones are from Bolton. Their live reputation has brought many out tonight. They are loud and fast and highly predictable but in a great way. "1-2-FUCK-YOU" screams the singer which seems to amuse the two lads who look like IT managers stood in front of me, their heads bobbing along in rock unity. Their set is a blast of 3 minute riff heavy sabbath esque slabs of stooges cool. The singer looks on the verge of collapse by the end, the gormless DJ starts her CD set halfway through their last track, it's all a bit confusing. I've seen TTB play better and harder but this was a late afternoon slot on Easter Sunday. They still rocked harder than most bands ever will.

Next up were Chorley based instrumentalists Elohymn whose music mixes short sharp blasts of noise with intricate guitar lines and vocal samples from what sounds like Ghost hunting with Evett Fielding. The bespectacled front man has about three amps on stage, waaaay tooo mach!! His guitar is slightly overpowering the rest of the bands rhythm and drive although he does manage to conjure some wonderful sounds from his vast pedal board. There is a huge amount of instrumental bands in Preston, many of which are utterly pointless quiet-heavy-quiet-heavy mogwai wannabes. In fact many a night you can see a line up in Preston of bands that are all instrumental and all throughly forgettable. Elohymn are a cut above the rest of these bands, but it makes you wonder how long they can plough such a common trough.

The Great Eskimo Hoax start off very promising. I like bands with unconventional lineups and having a few keyboards and syths knocking about always promises much. Instead what we get is a very thin version of Foals. There isn't really much to grab onto and half way through the set they seem to drift into Yann Tiersens Amelie soundtrack, it becomes all squeezebox and European waltz. It should impress me but it all sounds a little wish-washy!

Next up were O. A strangly named band consisting of a few ex-prestonians. Their set consists of blasts of compex riffary and intricate rhythms. The guitarist keeps swapping guitar for synth and despite the sound being overwhelming loud the weft of sheer pop magic can be heard weaving within their songs. Their high energy set ends with a brooding and dark monster of a track which seems to impress the eager crowd.

Last on are the Leeds based Chickenhawk. As last band of the night they decide to set up on the floor in front of the stage. The drummer lines up with the crowd facing the huge row of amps on stage. Their music is brutal and unapologetic. Yet there seems to be humour and a certain tongue in cheek flavour to what they do. The guitarist takes a stroll around the venue mid set climbing from booth to booth whilst tapping away on his guitar neck spinal tap style, the drummer throws water about and leaps back onto his kit, its the last night of a long tour for them and you can see they want to let of some steam. They look like they really enjoy what they do and that makes it very easy to enjoy it with them. Phenomenally loud and very entertaining, though I doubt anyone went home whistling their tunes.

Towards the end of the night after Chickhawk finished a rather furious track a friend asked me what genre of music this was, referring to the sweaty shirtless skinny kids now playing. I couldn't think of a decent response. Boys in skinny jeans and pumps making music so loud and intense that many metalers would be running for the door. It isn't hardcore, it's a variety of punk perhaps, but only in the DIY ethic. In the end I just turned to my friend an said I don't know. He couldn't hear me anyway Chickenhawk had just started up again and we were both going deaf.

Happy Easter.