Craving for More
Not the best way for most to spend Valentine's Day....! Seeing as I am a married veteran of 20-plus years and a non believer in the dark arts of VD (er, Valentine's Day!) it was my best in many a recent year.
Firstly some apologies. Apologies to the two support bands I missed due to being ill, I'm sure you were great. What I caught of Tigers Please was enough to convince me that they are moving onwards and upwards. Also, apologies on behalf of the people of my home town of Wrexham, for not turning up in numbers. Carry on like this and we won't have a bloody rock venue to visit
Now a quick rant to the venue. WTF is going on! It was minus 2 outdoors, and felt colder indoors. You couldn't see the bands for scarves and hats you tight fisted bastards. Put some effin heating on!
Anyway I feel as if I am a one man promo machine for The Crave at the moment. Hot on the heels of their (official)debut album – don't ask! They visit my home town. Even after 2 days with a violent stomach bug I wasn't going to miss this opportunity. Thankfully they didn't let the paltry crowd or icy indoor weather affect their performance.
The set is heavily weighted in favour of their debut album, with 8/9 songs coming from "Breaking the Silence". The mightily anthemic 'High' was the strongest from their original pulled debut and made its way over to 'BTS'.
Opening with an energetic number that set their stall, 'Set Me Free' The Crave had this little but very appreciative Welsh audience in the palm of their mittened hands. It's obvious that their experience in supporting Shinedown, Gotthard, Buckcherry, Purple, Quo, and a few well known festival appearances under their belts has worked in their favour. They are much tighter as a unit, more confident, and have a set list that many a band would like. The Crave are a stadium band well ahead of their time, but I suppose the ground work has to be completed before the next phase of their progression
The great thing with rock bands is that there is no fuss, all of the lads play well, and all support Ryan in the harmony dept which is great to hear. I thought that Carlos' guitar was a little too low in the mix, as at times his soloing was hardly audible above the rest of the band. In a bizarre Spinal Tap moment after the second song 'All of You' he flicked his pick out to the crowd and it shot past the whole of the them and landed near the mixing desk. Priceless.
The mix of songs was excellent from the FM stadium sounding 'High' to the simply stunning 'Silently Screaming' and acoustic 'Spinning Wheel'. Without having to exit the stage (no doubt it was too cold to wait in the wings) they wasted no time in getting stuck into 'Cooking In The Kitchen', a great number and no doubt first single from the new album. It was all over too soon.
If you missed them, shame on you. Be sure to catch them soon as they surely won't be playing venues of this size for too long.
Set List -
Set Me Free
All Of You
Breaking The Silence
High
Weight Of The World
Spinning Wheel
The Stray
Silently Screaming
Mercenary Man
Encore – Cooking In The Kitchen