Messing about on the river
Texan five piece Riverboat Gamblers play a lively half an hour set of melodic punk on the Lock Up stage. It’s catchy and in your face and they aren’t about to let a relatively small crowd put them off their game. Early on in the set singer Mike Wiebe climbs up on the speaker stacks before going down to the crowd and not surprisingly they lap it up.
Some of the songs are a bit flat but overall they impress, putting us in mind of The Explosion in the more melodic parts. Admittedly they do need a few more killer tunes and towards the end it does become predictable but there are solid foundations and much to like in their performance. They rarely pause for breaks between songs, preferring to cram in as many tracks as possible, which coupled with the simple song structures at times reminds me of The Ramones and that’s no bad thing.
They finish off with ‘Art of Getting Fucked Over’ during which they get a small but enthusiastic section of the crowd to drop to their knees before leaping into the air at the given moment. It doesn’t quite work given the small numbers involved but you can’t fault them for effort. Pretty good overall but some filler to get rid of.