THE GOLDEN FILTER / HEARTS REVOLUTION / PINK SKULL [Live] @ (LE) POISSON ROUGE

158 BLEEKER ST, New York City - Jan 30th 2009

February 4, 2009, 10:33 PM

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A weekend in New York City is much like a kid in a candy store when it comes to where to spend your night. The choices are endless! I wanted to go and see a gig so had a look at what was happening and after spending an hour going through all the bands that were playing gigs that night I decided to go to a more electronic inspired evening at Le Poisson Rouge, in the West Village. Three bands were on the bill and we sat there and listened to them in the order they would be gracing the stage (Pink Skull, Hearts Revolution and The Golden Filter). As we listened it appeared that the order of tonight's bands was setup right and that they would be saving the best till last. How very wrong we were. So wrong in fact that the night actually transcribed in the exact opposite way.

We arrived 30 minutes after doors opened and were told that the gig had not yet started and to go downstairs to the front bar. The front bar decor was lovely and it was packed. There was a DJ spining some cool tunes and a live percussionist who played all sorts of percussion instruments perfectly in sync with the DJ. I was well impressed and settled the night in with a nice bottle of Stellar whilst soaking up the great music! We were then informed to go upstairs and make our way through the big red door, where our guestlists were confirmed and we entered to Finger on the Pulse DJs (what looked like two twin brothers) who were playing some of the most banging and up to date dance music. Unbelievably good music in fact. So much so that within an instant of getting in there we were all having an awesome time. Until the first band Pink Skull graced the stage we actually all forgot that we were at a gig and felt like we were in the best club in NYC that night!

So Pink Skull graced the stage and softly introduce themselves before beginning an amazing set. Pink Skull consist of a drummer, lead singer and secondary drummer / percussionist, sax / flute player and a couple of more guys that I can't quite place. Everything on the stage looked like it shouldn't work but it worked amazingly in fact. The next 40 minutes or so was even better than the DJ had been because this was dance music being performed live and the live performance was pretty much flawless. I couldn't take my eyes of the stage and the club at this point was jam packed with everyone looking in awe at what was being played. This just proves how the live and recorded sounds of a band can be completely different and misleading because I thought prior to attending this gig that Pink Skull were going to be the worst live but in fact they were the best! Offering the greatest amount of modesty, showmanship and talent. Pink Skull are indeed the band that I will be following and watching moving forward.

Pink Skull vacate the stage and the twin brother of Finger on the Pulse DJs starts his set and it is by no means as good as his brother with a lot more cheesy choices being made one of which made me feel like I was in a shit club in Cardiff that night and not a West Village venue in New York City. We squeemed and drunk our beers through this set itching for the next band Hearts Revolution to grace the stage. Hearts Revolution were the band I held most hope for tonight live as they sounded like a live band. A rocky, dance band with female fronted, distortion vocals that give it a raw edge. Although even before attending the show Hearts Revolution's songs [to a point] sounded samey due to the excessive use of the distortion on the vocals I held hope for the fact that this could easily be forgotten were you there. Well I was there, and live these guys come over worse. The sound guy for this band was awful with the vocals which, on recording were heavily the main focus, were too quiet and distant offering a completely different sound for this band. Without the vocals as the key focus it was clear that the songs weren't that good and neither were the players. It is not that they were bad, in fact they were tight it was just boring with the whole set sounding like one song. The rest of the crowd were feeling the same quite blatantly as the response at the end of songs was nowehere near as strong as it was for Pink Skulls. A huge dissapointment as Hearts Revolution were the band I was actually most looking forward to.

Hearts Revolution depart the stage [thank god] and the original Finger on the Pulse DJ comes back on the stage which we are all super excited about as he can now swing this gig around and get is hyped for the headline act The Golden Filter. To everyone's dismay, the chequed shirted brother had obviously been put under a spell by his brothers set as he too was no playing really old, commercial pap and it appears the night was spiralling out of control from amazing to terrible very quickly. What I had hoped would turn the night back around seemed to be failing miserably. So as we yawned and drank some more we eagerly anticipated The Golden Filter gracing the stage.

As they did and we were confronted with a Stevie Nicks wannabe I wondered what The Golden Filter would be like live. And the answer is.........awful. Again, these guys were tight but there was no showmanship. The rest of the band were blatantly pawns for the Stevie Nicks wannabe to get her music out there and it made for boring viewing. I actually had more fun listening to these guys on record as the visual stigma associated just didn't do them any favours. A complete lack of originality and monotony made for the worst performance of the night unfortunately and we felt compelled to leave before the end of the set to rescue the end of our night by going somewhere else.

What started as a night that we were all dancing, grooving and texting our friends to come too what was sure to be an amazing night ended up in boredom and embarresment that we had persuaded our friends to pay the cover to get in only to miss the greatness. Unlike any other gig I have ever been to I wasglad we turned up early tonight because it turned out that this gig did the reverse of every other gig in that it started amazing and got progressively worse.

Still, thank god for Pink Skull.

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