Progression is key to a band’s success, years of touring, building a fan base and a lot of studio work. In the 5 years that Fightstar have under their belt, the performance tonight just shows how hard they have worked. The set was tight, I mean very tight. The songs where hammered out with an abundance of energy and aggression. Due to a hand injury, drummer Omar Abidi had to give it a miss for the performance tonight. The replacement drummer lived up to Omar’s standard of ridiculously tight and technical abilities. The vocal harmonies gushed out by guitarist Alex Westaway could send shivers down the spine of any man woman and child. The band as a whole seem very comfortable on stage, showing that all their hard work has paid off. And It can only get better from here.

Having seen Fightsar back in 2006 play to a horrific crowd at Download festival (they were pretty much bottled throughout the whole gig), I didn’t know what to expect from tonight’s older audience here to see Feeder (which I didn’t realize until walking into the venue). There wasn’t much movement, but after each song the band received a great reception. Lead singer Charlie Simpson got them moving a few times during the set, proving his role as a great showman.

The new single ‘The English Way’ sounded epic. Simpson’s vocals for every song were on form, bellowing his patent husky approach to vocal melodies. The Progressive rock ballad; ‘Mono’, was played with a lot of emotion. The juxtaposition of delayed guitars jumping into a stupidly heavy distortion worked so well. It pretty much blew your socks off. They did showcase a new track ready to be released on the newest album they are currently working on. This song was very technical, reminiscent of Biffy Clyro’s older material, with strange time signatures and jittery guitars. They finished their set off with their first release ‘Palahniuk's Laughter’ that went down very well with the crowd.

Accepting a band for what they are is very hard for the closed minded individual. Love them or hate them, Fightstar are a very good emo-progressive-rock band, and should be well respected for their music.


http://www.myspace.com/fightstarmusic