They put a spell on you...
From the moment we got through the door, it was going to be a bizarre night. No, even before we got to the door. The White Rabbit is a tiny club tucked away in an old bus station. Right through the night it was never more than about half full, which gave it an intimate us-and-them kind of feel. That may have been slightly disappointing for the bands, but then again it’s a Sunday night. And all the way through A Clockwork Orange was being projected onto one wall, which was slightly unnerving.
Having three support bands was probably a little excessive by anyone’s standards. Death metallers Huron did a sterling job of working the small crowd and really made a connection, which second band on Chigwa unfortunately never capitalised on. Redemption Unnamed, while technically good, suffered from being the third band, having excessively long songs, and a very good female singer who insisted on screaming like a bloke. So it was turning into a very long evening.
All was forgiven once Voodoo Six hit the stage. Fresh from a publicity drive, brand new album, and success at Download this year, V6 had a quality obviously missing from the other bands. It didn’t matter that the (small) room was less than half full, they came, they saw, they treated it like a stadium. To their eternal credit. The setlist was a mixture of songs from the album First Hit For Free, and some new tracks, and really brought home how fantastic a live group these guys have become. Two moments brought home that we weren’t in a large venue, when frontman Henry Rundell, looking like he’d stepped out of "Interview With The Vampire", moved his mic stand and barely missed the roof, and when some ejit decided to decorate the low ceiling (and consequently the audience) with beer. Needless to say, the lighters didn’t come out for Mistaken, the most stunning track of the evening. There are very few tracks that when you hear them live set your nerves on edge like an electric shock, but that was one of them. More surprising was the inclusion of three new tracks, Killer, Show Me The Way, and Break My Fall, of which the first one was one of the best songs that night, and sure to be a future hit.
Once V6 hit the stage, the evening suddenly seemed far too short, like they couldn’t play enough songs (notably fan favourite Saints and Sinners was MIA). For a, lets face it, small audience (a good chunk of whom were support bands), with about six clear hardcore fans at the front, V6 managed to convert the rest of the room before the end of the first song. They combined brilliant showmanship and excellent musicianship, and it was just damn good fun. Classic rock at its best.