Bastion 4 + Red Letter Day + Cinder - HMC @ Railway Workers Club, Fratton. 18/07/05

My first visit to HMC (Happy Monday Club) and it is truly bizarre. Held at a railway workers club it is like entering the club from Phoenix Nights and a fair few minutes were spent trying to locate the portrait of the Queen that must be lurking within but to no avail and at least the beer is very cheap. Then it's a case of avoiding all the pretty underage emo girls and boys who have made it home as they somehow manage to get served and it's business as usual when Cinder take to the stage. Hampered a little by a cramped stage which renders the band fairly static, they none the less deliver another inch perfect set of highly addictive rock with tracks like 'Mortality' showing the ease in which they combine driving riffs with huge melodies; melted dripping sugar sweetness with a crisp shiny covering and very tasty with it.

Red Letter Day are out to give their new album some advance publicity and if tonight's set is anything to go by then it should be a cracker. Each time I see this band live they seem to get better which is a minor miracle seeing as they have been around for nigh on twenty years, but not ones to rest on their laurels they keep going and developing. Tonight they sound like punk with added vitamins, a swathe of alternative rock cutting into the sound and filling it with additional energy and passion. With frontman Ade his normal hyperactive self ( I'm sure he's been at his kids Smarties again!) and the band firing on all cylinders they are sounding really good and at this rate we'll still be watching them in another twenty years.

Tonight is not the best Bastion 4 gig I've seen, a fair few people have left and it doesn't really quite take off like it should. On their day, the Bastions are a band full of bravado, yobbish indie rock with some Clash style punk thrown in that have a strange ability to appeal to an indie crowd and a more 'townie' audience, quite strange but part of their charm. When they hit the spot, they really hit the spot but tonight feels more like a practice session which is a shame but there is always next time.