#69
needsometherapy wrote:
OK. Here is a translation from the report on the web site above. Sorry it took a while but have been very busy lately (or in other words I couldnt be arsed !!!!! )
After the end of the stormy live performance by Therapy? In Athens, there was a feeling of overall surprise. The crowd, that in not any case avoided the event, found it very difficult to understand how a group that fights hard to be in the news, can create superb conditions of rock explosion. Maybe at last experience is much more important that the youth hunger.
The crowd that was a lot in quantity, different in quality and from different locations, did notice the local punk rockers Vodka Junior from the north suburbs. The young ones had created a fanatic pit in front of the stage. The speed that the songs were played sometime did create a music chaos but in any ways this hardcore punk mixture of Biohazard and Agnostic Front sounds better when it is so rough. Rarely the songs had something special and new, but Andy Cairns was impressed by them and later did congratulate them, so no more said here.
The really big questionmark with Therapy? is Really what kind of crowd do they appeal to? From one side there is love for their hardcore style of Husker Du that gives them a punk strength, from the other side the craziness with the hard guitar sounds and heavy metal appearance (bassist Michael McKeegan was wearing a Judas Priest T-shirt) brings them close to a heavy metal audience that has wider expectations and views of the general rock stage. Their third side of being able to write hype indie rock hymns made them more successful at some point to a more mainstream crowd. All these influences do mix up, sometimes also in the middle of a song, but at the end the Northern Irish band are nothing like this. Maybe that is why they lost out on the opportunity to have a great career since they didnt maintain a specific genre.
The good thing about this though is that all the possible interested to their music people (punkers, heavy metal fans, indie kids, rockers) they still had the curiosity to see them live and Cairns, McKeegan and the incredible drummer Neil Cooper didnt loose out on the opportunity to repay them. The inclusion of Cooper was priceless as his creative way of playing reminded everyone of the crazy rythym that Therapy? had at the start of their career when the current drummer Fyfe Ewing was hitting like a maniac his kit like it was a set of saucepans. In that was even songs from their new album suck as Die like a Motherfucker, Rock you mokeys etc had a classic Therapy? feeling. The setlist was spread around with a series of classics such as Scremager, Nowhere, Stories, Turn, Die Laughing, the well known versions of Isolation and Diane (which was played with only one distorted guitar reminding a lot the original version of Grant Hart). Teethgrinder and Potato Junkie were also there from their almost industrial music period and all songs were played with a Ramones punk craziness, speed. Cairns couldnt hide at every stop his enthusiasm about the good panic that they were creating. But from the other side when there was some trouble up front the band stopped the set immediately and the lead singer asked for the fiasco to stop and that he though that he left that shit back home in Belfast. Noone can have anything bad to say about this as he was sincere and all he wanted was for the crowd to have a good time and not beating up each other!
Final word is that maybe it is not important at all where Therapy? want to list themselves in the music industry. Since with their ear tearing guitars can even make Evi Adam (greek supermodel I think) remember her youth, then we can let them float in a cannibalistic music industry without producing any blasting records anymore but succeeding in contributing to the social work of modern rock.
Posted on Wed, 16 February 2005 at 11:57
