65Daysofstatic @ Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth 16/04/2008

Tonight's openers PILGRIMFATHERS are one of those uncomfortable "neo-prog" bands where the only "progressive" aspects are the heavily distorted vocals and the increasingly unkempt hairiness of the members as you moved from drummer through to vocalist. i.e. not very good.

http://www.myspace.com/thepilgrimfathers

GAY FOR JOHNNY DEPP are a NY hardcore band who kick the gig screaming into life with their aggressively homoerotic odes to their thespianic hero. Sample lyric: "Cause I want my Johnny bleeding... fuck him in the ass." Lead singer Marty Leopard appears tonight dressed as a reverend, but soon strips down to his stars and stripes boxers, leaping into the crowd for every song. The rest of the band, either outstaged or embarassed, remain still for most of the set, which focusses upon their 25 minute debut LP "The Politics Of Cruelty".

http://www.myspace.com/gayforjohnnydepp

65DAYSOFSTATIC come on stage, and to be honest, I was expecting big things. I'd heard a number of people saying how great they were live, and having only got into them fairly recently, I was hoping my lack of knowledge of the songs wouldn't let me down.

Its very easy for a review to throw away words like "Epic" and "awe-inspiring" like the poster to a Bruckheimer movie or a Daily Mail review of U2's latest, but in this case I would say its greatly justified.

Debut single and arguably their biggest song "Retreat! Retreat!" is thrown away early into the set, almost as if the band want to dissociate themselves from The Fall Of Math and focus upon One Time For All Time and The Destruction Of Small Ideas.

65DOS's set tonight within the tiny Wedgewood Rooms is massively beyond these four walls. Instrumentally, the drummer is the only one you can hear consistently (most of the absolutely crazy drumbeats are actually him, occasionally assisted by a drum machine), and the guitars frequently descend into a whirlwind of noise and atmosphere, the bass occasionally popping its head up during some of the quieter more melodic parts.

I'm afraid I haven't really got much of an idea what else they played that night, but that shouldn't be a bad thing. This is post-rock. This is 3 minutes of noise followed by a minute of quiet followed by a drum break and then 3 minutes of noise.

This is pretty fucking epic.

http://www.myspace.com/11488230