Not always 'the more I like'
Interesting times for The More I See, having recently acquired vocalist Peter Ellis they are about to lose guitarist and co-founder Gav King, this being his last show with the band. I expect in hindsight he would have wished for a grander exit. The band also feature ex-English Dogs and Prodigy guitarist Gizz Butt and with a couple of albums to their name it’s a surprise to see them well down the bill on the second stage. It’s a decent size room and with only around 100 punters in the crowd looks sparse, which makes life a little difficult for the band.
Clearly used to different class of venue, Ellis finds his classic metal posing and cajoling of the audience falling fairly flat. He is a little over the top in his efforts to get the crowd motivated and to be fair, it’s 12.30pm and there is no bar in here, it was always going to be hard work. What of the material? Well it’s all very well done but it’s also pretty generic, fast paced classic metal. The songs aren’t particularly memorable and whilst they have all the moves and some pretty mean guitar solos from Gizz Butt, without the material to back it up it gives them limited appeal. Album title track ‘The Unholy Feast’ is better, catchier and to the point but it’s a stand out track amongst an otherwise predictable set. Amongst this kind of line up it’s a half hour set that has nothing different or exciting about it despite being very professional and well done.
The crowd applaud politely but it’s already evident that it’s going to be hard to get any kind of atmosphere going in a room that both is and feels like a conference room.