After making the wee one hour journey from Aberdeen down to Dundee I headed for the Beat Generator on Dundee's North Lindsay Street. Need a special mention here for this: Is that not the coolest gig ticket you've ever seen!? It's printed on see-through plastic! It's a crackin venue of about 300. Every drink I bought seemed to be £2.50 so it was affordable and the sound was pretty damn good. Outside there was kebab shops wherever I looked so I was never going to go wrong for munch either. The only problem with the venue was the heat! Jesus Christ is was a boiler room in there and the venue was only half full! I'd imagine you'd be struggling to breath at full capacity. It was that hot it made me tired! Enough of the venue, it's the bands we're here to see....
Maze McPunklet: One of Dundee's local promoters (Punklet Promotions) heads to the stage to open up the day with her acoustic ballads and poetry. She plays well and with her confidence growing evermore each times she takes to the stage, you can see this lass has a bright future. In my opinion, a few stand out songs and she'll be ready to start the rounds with her set around the UK. As usual, the crowd loved "Osama's the Man", which you can find on the fanzine, kindly donated by the lady herself. 7.5/10
Bobby Stickah: It was nice to see Bobby again, after seeing him at Slaughterfest, and to be honest I didn't realize how weird the lad is. Some dodgy tunes and dodgy vocals but an all round experience. He definitely puts everything he has into his set and it shows with his onstage antics. 7/10
Vega's Loft: I remember seeing the band in Aberdeen a few years back and loving their set, but I failed to follow up on it. Today was no different. They played brilliant. Pop Punk Rock with some bollocks, fast as hell and great to see live, this band has a good sound to them, they just need that little bit extra, but I'll be fucked if I know what it is, they've played well to me! 8/10
Crimedesk: In all fairness to the band, musically they weren't too bad. I liked the bass riffs, but I couldn't help but feel that all the songs started to sound the same and a wee bit bland once you put them all together. Vocally the band seemed mono-tone with no sense of anything behind it, I just couldn't get into it. 5/10
The Cundeez: These boys obviously are from Dundee, and sing about, being from Dundee, but they're much more than that. They were brilliant. I've always liked their recorded stuff, but it seemed a bit jokey to me, but live, this band played so much higher than my expectations. Get them seen! 8/10
Panic By Flare: The band played a not bad set actually, they were just a bit too pop punky skater punk for me, sadly there was only 2 or 3 songs that stood out for me, but like I said they gave it some welly. Check out their myspace for a few tunes if your into that sorta thing, it's well done for what they're aiming for. 7/10
R.P.G.: A not bad set from the guys, but they were a bit bland in my opinion. Good enough to bop your head along to but I just couldn't get excited about it, hopefully I'll see them again and I'll be mistaken like. 6/10
Overspill: What an absolute treat to finally see this band play live after years of seeing their t-shirts darted about Scotland. 2 singers. One Hardman, One nutter, two fuckin mad men. The music was varied between almost street punk in places, reggae in at least one song and musically they were fuckin brilliant. A smaller packed venue would have seen them get the full whack, that's where I reckon they'd be at their best. Can't wait to see this band again. 9/10
The Dot Cottens: In all fairness, they had a tough act to follow, but they gave it a blast. The songs were another set of head bouncers, but I'm afraid it was just impossible to live up to the bar that had just been set. Points for onstage banter and generally being nice lads like, but musically they seems a wee bit out of place, although they'll probably tell me to go fuck masel. 7/10
Pissed On Pissed Off: Holy fucking shit! First time I've seen them, every time I meant to something came up, but listening to their EP online with two blokes on vocals and it's good, but with the new line up, with a bloke and lass on vocals. Spectacular! The sheer dominating menace of Jim "Intimidation" Brown, when he's onstage with a mic in his hand is just that, Intimidating. The raw anger of this ENTIRE band however is something I've been missing from the bands I've seen in the last few months and the sheer heart, soul, sweat, blood and puke thrown into this band's performance is everything this scene needs. 10/10
Killing for Religion: Let me get something of my chest here. Apart from the last 2 songs, I don't class this band as a punk band at all. Vocally yes, but musically, they were clearly a metal band to me. Regardless, the burst onto the stage with a fair amount of raw power through the speakers and desire, but a bit more stage presence is definitely needed here. They gave it their all, much respect for that. 6.5/10
The Rotten Apples: I like a bit of Oi every now and again and in my opinion there's a lot of it that sounds very similar, it's the same with every genre. Sadly the lads, just didn't cut it for me. They were still good for the gig and no doubt they played well, the tunes just seemed to lack that slight edge and the stage presence was a bit lacking as well, but I reckon if they read this, get angry, and go tits on stage, It might just work!! 7/10
Patrol: I was looking forward to seeing Patrol, again a first time (you'd think I've been to a gig before), and they played pretty well in my opinion. To be honest by this stage I was fucking knackered and was dying for ma bed and clapping them was using up the last of my energy, but they deserved because they played well and I look forward to seeing them again, the crowd loved them. 8/10
Conclusion: I didn't catch The Eddies has I had to get a lift back to Arbroath, so apologies to the band for that. The word that floated about was that Middle Finger Salute didn't even bother telling anyone they weren't playing and just didn't show up, but they did post up on their facebook that they've had to pull out of the Scotland dates due to personal reasons. However whether the promoter got word of this is another story, which I know nothing about.
All in all some great performances, but a few average ones as well. Well Done to the lad that put this on, didn't manage to catch him to say Thank You, and bravo to the Dundee scene for showing up in good numbers. Was a decent day out. 8/10
Best Band: Pissed On Pissed Off
Thanks: To all the bands who played, regardless of my opinion, thank you for playing. The lad who put this on, Andy I'm told, it's people like you who keep the scene alive. Again to the Dundonians for coming out and to the Beat Generator for being a cool venue. Also to Maze McPunklet for letting me crash on her sofa and her old man for the Veggie fry up in the morning. Much Appreciated.
