Post by neilcrud on Jan 3, 2008 12:03:52 GMT
HEADHAUNTER
Bar Blu, Rhyl 02.03.08
Bar Blu, Rhyl 02.03.08
(review by neil crud)
A huge roar went up; well, perhaps a few cheers when Michael Philippo announced, ‘This next song’s called Emo Basher.’ And Holland’s Headhaunter ripped into the number at breakneck speed fuelled by chaos. On a mini winter tour, playing five dates in the UK to sample the delights of the sunny beaches of Kettering, the people’s republic of Birmingham, Brighton, Colwyn Bay and Rhyl..! That just about covers the UK! It’s hard to fathom what a band from Holland thinks about playing to a small, albeit enthusiastic crowd in a grimy seaside town in deepest darkest January, I should’ve asked them when I grabbed a couple of their CDs.
You could picture Headhaunter sitting post-soundcheck in nervous expectation, waiting for the hoardes to come in, hoping for a bumper crowd. Maybe the uncertainty of who’s gonna turn up makes things run better when those who do pay a visit are down the front for some no messing, knees up Mother Brown moshing.
Even to my uneducated metal ear I could fathom that this is actually more metal than punk, and I only say so as it was those no nonsense brick wall punk rockers Global Parasite who offered Headhaunter this opportunity to perform on our radioactive shores. And perhaps as in the case of those Canadian darlings Zeroscape, these Dutch reprobates can strut their stuff again someday to a bigger crowd (well, it was minus 5 degrees and two days after New Year’s Eve!) .
The songs came thick, fast and furious, and even the crowd warming medley of Iron Maiden’s Trooper together with Born To Be Wild and Paranoid was fast enough and heavy enough to keep the cold out. As their brand of metal – hardcore - thrash, descends nowhere near the learning curve of their Race Against Disaster counterparts who were playing out their set as we arrived at Blu, Headhaunter smacked of professionalism from start to finish. With every chord hammered out and welcomed by a scream or a clenched fist, as a great set draws to a close the breathless few wander away with a new band to add to their MySpace friends.
www.myspace.com/headhaunter
pics soon from Steve Sync’s 5million megapixel phone camera. £30 a month contract, 200 mins of calls and 500 texts.