West Bound Union and South of Saturn -16 June

Kicking off the night with slow, pounding drums and throaty vocals West Bound Union seduce the audience with soulful rock melodies, reminiscent of early Foo Fighters and current chart toppers Kings of Leon. The vocals are stronger than expected and easily carry over the simple instrumentals. It’s refreshing to see soft rock performed well live, as too many bands force far too much energy into their performance, loosing control of the vocals in the process. The lead singer here sets the tone for the band, rather than following the drummer, giving by far one of the best first impressions a local band has made on me for a long time!
8/10

The heavy instrumentals of South of Saturn are offset well by the surprisingly placeboesque tones of their front man, whose nasal sound provides a rich compliment to the more complicated guitar riffs, which sound far too similar to that of international artist Guthrie Govan for my liking, but are not easily achieved.
Despite the band looking young they seem to either have a fair bit of experience or natural stage presence, as they know how to work the crowd, and have plenty of energy, but the set is far from flawless with almost uncomfortable silences between songs towards the beginning, highlighting the fact that they are such young performers.
The lyrics are strong, but seem a bit repetitive, every song about not being labelled or letting life get to you, which is not a bad message, but comes across a bit too strong.
A good show, but I would be curious to see if they can produce anything a bit less focused on teenage angst and more upbeat.
7/10