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This was my first visit to the Fleece having only lived in Bristol a short time and I can honestly say it's one of the best venues I have visited. For a relatively small venue it certainly hosts some large and popular acts which is the perfect combination for fans like myself who like to get close to the action without having to stare at a security guards chest as he sources the audience for crowd surfing, drunk idiots.
For this gig, Rolo Tomassi were allowed to pick their own support which were 2 largely hello unheard of and very different bands.
I completely forgot the name of the opening band and their performance did not inspire me to look them up afterwards in order to find out. The guitarist looked tired and the lead singer, while projecting a lot of energy, got boring quickly when he jumped off the stage and stayed down amongst the (less than impressed) crowd for a further 3 songs. The songs themselves were lacking in variance. All in all, I hope this was just a bad day for them.
The second band on was Holy State who’s most impressive member was the drummer who was sporting a very 70s hairstyle so tongue in cheek I assumed he was recruited from a 70s psychedelia band. Any internal jokes about the look of this band were shelved when they started their incredibly groovy set. The vocalist, while adequate, could have been better that night (I have since watched some footage of other gigs and he is generally excellent). The songs were a bit chordy and less riffy than they could have been but all in all, a good band that is going places.
Then Rolo Tomassi came on stage.
Wow. They need to give their new lighting engineer a raise as In my opinion he MADE the show. They really set themselves apart from the other bands I have seen play venues of this size by putting on an ear splittingly loud show with seizure inducing light show; Eva Spence herself obviously stealing the show as she does so well by flailing about the stage as if small invisible strings were pulling her about; and she never wavered, the energy was constant (apart from an unfortunate near end set lull where they broke persona and started talking about the guitarists birthday) and ferocious. Her actual singing was a little off today but nothing that can’t be forgiven as by the end, the people walking out of the door were small sweat filled puddles of their former selves.
They have obviously worked hard on their set as it was tighter than a ducks arse and twice as smooth; not once did I feel anything veer off or anyone in the band do something unexpected…of course, with the Math Metal genre, it’s sometimes hard to tell if they are going into 7/8 or just missing a beat now and again (trying to tap my foot turned into a A level math exam).
All in all, this night was well worth the money and I would recommend Rolo Tomassi to anyone who hasn’t seen them live.
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