Gene - Live
Volunteer / Mankato
Saturday 14th of February 2004
It's been said before that the Wedgewood Rooms, Portsmouth, manage to get some rather big bands in for a really intimate gig. With Gene headlining the bill, this was either one of these occasions, or another indication of how undervalued this band is.
First support act, Volunteer, were remarkably similar to Gene, or so the audience believed before they got the real thing. Volunteer played the same style, but didn't have the same quality in the songs.
With a strong start, their set took a downward spiral for the next two tracks and picked up again for the second half. This was well presented music, but it wasn't very engaging or memorable.
Mankato, a very confident solo acoustic pop act, appeared after a substantial wait and managed to get an instant reaction from the crowd.
Despite being all alone on stage, Darren Berry was in control with a relaxed style and infectious laugh. The music was emotional and there was nothing wrong with any of the tracks although the by-product of the limitations of being a solo act was a lack of diversity.
After another lengthy gap, presumably due to the change over (i.e. the removal of one acoustic guitar), the Gene set started. After a somewhat pretentious backing track intro Gene set to work on material from their six albums.
With the most notable tracks coming from Revelations, Drawn to the Deep End and of course Olympian, Gene whipped the crowd in to a moving mass of head flinging, lyric shouting groupies.
A definite high was reached half way through the set with 'As Good as it Gets' and it never came down until the second encore had finished.
Far from being a washed-up Britpop band, Gene are playing 10 year old songs that sound more current now than they did in 1995. A great testament to the music would be the fact that after singing along to every song and cheering as each one was introduced, fans still left the venue asking why they didn't play their own personal favourite!
Author: Steve
Venue: Wedgewood Rooms (Portsmouth)
Found in: Live Reviews