Review by Darshun
May 15th 2014, The Roxy, West Hollywood CA: Following the release of their debut EP ‘Out Of The Black’, British garage rock duo Royal Blood performed at a sold-out Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood support act NYC rock trio The Last Internationale, who themselves released a debut EP called ‘I Do Mind Dying’. The stage and atmosphere at the Roxy was all in readiness for these two relatively new but fast-rising bands to showcase their wares, and our writer Darshun was on site to capture the action for us through his words. Read his review below.
I was happy to hear that Brad Wilk (Rage Against The Machine) is still playing drums and piqued my curiosity as to who The Last Internationale was. Being a huge fan of Rage Against The Machine and seeing them several times back in the day, I can recall what a beast Brad Wilk is on the drums. I’m not sure if the band intended this or if it was the Roxy, but their set intro was a social commentary that I recall as “The revolution will not be televised.” When the curtains went up people were getting prepared for the rock and roll explosion. Delila Paz (vocalist/bassist) reminded me of a Joan Jett but had the vocal knockdown of what some would describe as Janis Joplin. The guitars and backing vocals were handled by Edgey Pires and his playing was a bit weak, but I think I might have set my expectations too high in that department since Wilk played with Tom Morello who is hailed as a virtuoso. Pires was pretty much playing standard 3-chord rock and roll and played some a few solos here and there throughout the set. Brad Wilk rocked it though, he was in top form, which was great to witness again. The music sort of held up with a strong lead vocal performance by Delila and the drumming from Brad.
The Last Internationale links:
TheLastInternationale.com
facebook.com/TheLastInternationale
twitter.com/TLImusic
Ok, the main bout of the night brought a lot of curiosity to how the UK duo Royal Blood sounds so huge. Again there was intro music before Royal Blood started to crush the audience, which was a hip hop song. Since the stage was large enough to accommodate a band with several members, this duo had the drum riser placed to the right hand side of the stage. Michael Kerr (vocalist/bassist) and Ben Thatcher walked onto the stage and ripped into one of their songs with finesse. What drove me nuts that night was how does Michael make the bass sound like a guitar? I was wondering if it was a backing track, but I think not. I hypothesized that the sounds he was creating was from a “special effects” pedal. Ben tore it up on the skins and he plays in the pocket – absolutely brilliant and tasteful drumming. Before coming to the show, I listened to and watched a couple of their Youtube videos and was blown away at how well they mimicked the set live. You know, sometimes people make the comment, “Oh, they’re better live,” or “They’re studio performance was better than the live show.” Clearly not for this British duo, their performance is as great as their studio recordings and clearly live they know how to make the audience move. The sounds that Kerr creates on the bass completely baffled me the whole night as to how the hell does he sound like that? Royal Blood only have released an EP that I bought earlier in the day at Amoeba for a mere $1.99. The four songs can be found on Youtube and Itunes, but their set featured new songs from their forthcoming album as well. Royal Blood is heading places. Don’t miss an opportunity to see Royal Blood, because their sound is definitely catchy.
Royal Blood links:
RoyalBloodBand.com
facebook.com/RoyalBloodUK
twitter.com/RoyalBloodUK
instagram.com/RoyalBloodUK
Set List:
01. Hole
02. Come On Over
03. Figure It Out
04. Little Monster
05. Blood Hands
06. Loose Change
07. Out of the Black
The Roxy links:
TheRoxy.com
facebook.com/TheRoxy
twitter.com/TheRoxy
instagram.com/TheRoxy