A big day in the city doing chores, attending a Record Fair, watching a great All Blacks game at a sports bar and finishing off the day with this gig at Space Academy.
Roy Irwin was who drew me to this gig, I have both his records and thought I would check him out live. It turns out that Roy had just come along for the ride with P.F.H and he preforms his songs solo unlike his records where he has a backing band. It is a pretty difficult task to pull off preforming solo like this. Something special is needed from the performer and strong songs. I have seen several local artists that I really like on record preform like this and only some of them pull it off. Roy, unfortunately didn't for me, his records patchy affairs but he does have some great songs that I am familiar with but I only recognized one of them during his short set. He finished his set abruptly half way through a song, with the comment "Fuck it! I'm done".
Previously to Roy, Wurld Series played. A four piece indi band that I really have enjoyed the other times I have seen them, a cross of Flying Nun and Pavement with catchy tunes and plenty of energy. It was interesting after the last gig I went to a couple of nights earlier where the PA was cranked to overload and ear damaging volumes, compared to the sound of these guys this night. It appears that only the vocals were coming through the PA during their set in this small venue and so thew rest of the players we were hearing just their guitar amps direct and the drums naked and it sounded bloody good, pretty clear and well separated sound. It worked really well in this venue. Don't know if this was deliberate. Again really enjoyed their set.
P.H.F were completely unknown to me, from Auckland, this four piece hit right into some great punky tunes with the singer pretty snotty and often singing on the floor in front of the stage. They were tight and fast and really mixed up their set with some poppy stuff, some slower stuff, some grungy stuff and the best of the lot some cool punk rock. I was most impressed and the small audience was actually asking for more at the end. Just listening to their Bandcamp stuff as I type and they are much better live.
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