Ejector Seat 12/6/05

Neon Vice + Moral Low Ground + Dolium 12th June 2005 – Joiners

by Matthew Butler

As the initiated know, Ejector Seat Presents… are gigs whereby you are propelled into the unknown, as promoters Andy and Mac’s eclectic band selections range so fantastically. Tonight definitely falls into the heavier rock bracket and begins with Neon Vice (pictured), whose singer Tyler spends much of the gig standing perilously on top of a beer crate. This is quite a dangerous act when you’re belting out songs which threaten to fill not only the venue, but the whole city. With the raw power of AC/DC fused with Slash-like melodic guitar riffs, the band are also surprisingly democratic by offering the crowd a choice between “heavy or funky”. The former candidate is elected and so the band launch into ‘Fucking Hostile’, which does exactly what it says on the tin and allows the band to put their locks to good use with some old-fashioned, Wayne’s World head-banging. Party on.
The night is kept alive with Moral Low Ground, who are the Foo Fighters if Dave Grohl had woken up on the wrong side of bed and inadvertently stepped into a bedpan. With one song being described as “about drugs and a game of pool” the noise created is suitably hectic. The vocalist is so impassioned he’s on the verge of spitting out a lung while the other two thirds of the band both literally and musically complete the chest-baring passion. Unfortunately, when slowed down the band descend into jam fillers, but there is plenty to enjoy when they serve up their thick slices of meaty rock from the menu. The musical cherry on the top comes courtesy of Dolium who take to the stage with feather bowers, fingerless gloves and fuzzy, fantastic, franticness. ‘Broken Nose, Broken Home’ is indicative of a black hole type set - incredibly dark but impossible not to be sucked into; sounding like Joy Division fronted by Black Francis. The fantastically, although hopefully fictionally, titled ‘Daddy’s Swinging In The Attic’ would no doubt have had the band’s early enthusiast John Peel smiling wickedly from up above, at its unsettling and jerky genius. Singer Reece Adamo requests the crowd has “sweet dreams”, right before a track introduced as ‘Kill Emma’. This is tantamount to Nick Ross asking us not to have nightmares after an hour of tormenting us with rapists and murderers on Crimewatch. The band launch heavily into this set-closer, with Adamo doing so quite literally as he ends the gig writhing around on his back in the crowd, both shambolically and gloriously. Clearly the Ejector Seat boys are propelling both artists and gig-goers alike into realms of impassioned artistry.