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Taking the train to London on a rainy Tuesday, I was wondering whether the gig featuring this young band from Florence as headliners would compensate me for the trip to the Hope and Anchor. After all, those rainy evenings human nature dictates you to stay inside - or at least not far from home. I can now state that it was definitely worth it: four talented young bands giving all they had, in a venue with great acoustic and a rock feeling, with 81db
giving a very cogent presentation of their fresh contribution to progressive music.
The Hope and Anchor is a small club which apparently has a rock/punk history of its own (see Stranglers' photo on the side). That night there were around 40 people in the club, which was ok for its size but certainly not packed. Before 81db appeared three bands: Stash, Clawback, and Stash the Silver. These are all very decent bands, with Stash playing punk-blues, Clawback being clearly heavy metal, and Stash the Silver playing (and visually resembling) 70's rock. The highlights include Clawback's restless singer (Max Krook), who introduced the idea of stepping down off the stage and singing where the crowd stood (the club is very small and what separates the stage from the off-stage is a 10cm-high step). Stash the Silver also had great energy, with their guitars (by Robin Hirschfeld) and drums (Darren Lee) being amazing.
As soon as 81db started setting up, the audience's attention was attracted by the bouzouki that Kostas (Ladopoulos, guitars) placed prominently on a stand on stage. In other circumstances I might have started wondering whether am I in the right venue but, in my opinion, that's the thing that 81db do best: the mingling of heavy metal sound with elements of eastern/Greek traditional music. The next thing that attracted our attention were the white masks the band put on before kicking off.
The set started with the intro (200x) and the outro (Evaluation) of their debut album "Evaluation". That was all very calm and trippy, the band wearing their white masks and standing almost still. The next song was "Nice Trip" and hell broke loose: the masks were dropped and the band instantly transformed to a bunch of restless metallers! I mean, you could still remember those guys standing off-stage some minutes ago, all calm and easy, and now - bahm! - they ignited! William (Costello, vocals), who looked like the cool Italian until a minute ago, was now headbanging off the
stage…
"Nice Trip" is one of the gems in 81db's debut, and live it was even better as the band performed more freely and definitely heavier than in studio. The great sound in the Hope helped a lot too and, after all, the fact that the band stood a metre from you made the whole experience all the more intense. The set continued with "Dr. Barytone" and "Luna" (the latter a new composition) which carried the same amounts of energy. Unfortunately, the second voices William attempted through a loudhailer didn't really make it through. Otherwise, the band's performance was excellent, with Kostas' solos and William's restlessness attracting most of the attention. Next was "Argonaut's Song", an instrumental composition that clearly depicts the band's progressive vision in music.
The 40-minute slot ended with a climax, starting from "Captcha" (a new song, I had to search on google to see what this means), passing to the hit "Voices", and ending with the craziest track in their album, "Insexts". The built up in energy resulted in "Insexts" sounding very solid and metal, and you could see that the band was giving all they had. Thus, the set ended in the same way it started, i.e. with engines at full power - a rewarding experience indeed!
SETLIST: 1. 200x - Evaluation, 2. Nice Trip, 3. Dr. Barytone, 4. Luna*, 5. Argonaut's Dance, 6. Captcha*, 7. Voices, 8. Insexts.
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