Finch Gig 24/11/08 Oxford Academy

I hoped more than anything they wouldn't let me down

November 26, 2008, 01:16 PM

This was make or break for me, as a Finch fan seeing them play live for the 3rd time I had it in my head that this was their final chance to woo me. The reason being that the two previous times they never played 'Letters to you' and that was the main reason I fell for them (so to speak) and I hoped more than anything they wouldn't let me down.

The main support was a band I had never heard of called The Hexes. I had quickly checked their Myspace profile before I left for the gig and wasn't particularly impressed that a band with a bog standard profile and very few friends had gotten the main support slot for Finch, but I thought no, give them a chance. I tried to play some of their tracks but unfortunately Myspace declared that this was unavailable at the time, so I had a surprise in store once I entered the Oxford Academy.

My first observation when I arrived was that if the smoke machine wasn't working over time there would be little in the venue other than smoke, and the few people that were there looked more like they had taken a wrong turning or had somehow been tricked into buying tickets. However Finch's heyday was a considerable number of years ago and I realised that this gig wasn't about pushing a new album or creating a buzz for a new sensation, it was about trying to rekindle an old flame.

The Hexes appeared on stage and my +1 nudged me and said “you know who that is don't you?”, I didn't, “I swear that's the bassist from A”. I thought to myself, now we know how an unheard of band got this support slot. My second thought was they should sound quite professional and tight then. The front man for the Hexes tried to whip up the crowd, which to be honest was hard work, then he opened his mouth! I think for The Hexes I will start with the most positive thing I can find to say about them, which is I'm sure in a dirty punk dive they would have a fan base, but for supporting Finch it wasn't their place and whoever made the decision to have The Hexes support Finch needs to be shot.

Musically they were tight and the occasional touch of picking or clever little riff just about made it bearable, adding some synth here and there didn't trick me into accepting them and I found myself clinging on to the once in a blue moon bit of actual melody that managed to seep out from the backing vocals. The main vocals certainly made you sit up and take notice and I could honestly say I had never heard it anywhere else before, but for me waiting to see Finch this wasn't what I wanted to hear. I came up with several ways in which I could even start to explain what I heard from the Hexes and music aside, all I could focus on was the main vocals; you could have put them to any song because it was the same 'noise' that came out of him for every track. The 'noise' being take one angry Kings Of Leon front man, Sid Vicious and Brody Dalle, then get them into a fight, then put that fight into a human body and finally repeatedly stab and that's the noise that I heard! Now I know I am one for being brutally honest so I turned to my +1 and put this description to him, just to see if I was being too harsh, his response was “My ears are bleeding”. Don't get me wrong I'm sure for those who are into angry nightmare-ish punk would be all over it but I was just simply over it!

After one song too many for me, I personally felt angry and vowed as soon as I heard 'Letters to you' I would go home and start a fight. Then I got worried, what if Finch were setting a scene to make the new material they were about to present to us seem acceptable? I really hoped not and that The Hexes were just a misguided mistake.

The stage started to get set up for Finch and to my surprise Finch were their own roadies. Weird. They opened with 'Perfection through silence', and my first thought was they are a bit rusty but I'll give them a couple of songs in till I make a permanent judgement. Second was 'Worms of the Earth' and I started to feel excited as I begun to reminisce about how much I loved this band. The crowd had barely any time to clap in appreciation for being taken on a trip down memory lane, as they kept boshing out song after song and fair play to them they gave us what we wanted; which was pretty much the entire “What it is to Burn” album.

Yes, there were songs from “Say Hello to Sunshine”, which I tried to ignore as for me that album came from a totally different band, a band that wanted to prove that they too could write pretentious off tempo “mathcore” tracks that no one could ever sing along to and for me that album was their downfall, so luckily they only played about 3 songs from it.

Finch also played some tracks from their new self titled EP, to which Nate finally spoke asking “who has our new EP?”, I could count the amount of people who did have it on one hand. Nate replied in a sad yet understanding tone “fair enough”, at which point I felt sorry for them. On with the show. 'Letters to You' came in the middle of the set and finally I could tick that off my “songs you must hear live list”, it started to feel like a gig and I begun to appreciate just how talented these guys were and are.

The set was an hour and half long and there was a 3 song encore which ended with 'What it is to Burn' and for me they couldn't have picked a better song to end on. The crowd ripped it up and I felt 18 again. I think for those who lost faith in Finch or forgot about them should definitely give their NEW stuff a listen to, especially the track “Chinese Organ Thieves” which is available to download on iTunes.