“It was loud, brash and sometimes anarchic, but it was great punk and heavy rock,” writes Danny Howell, reviewing a gig at Warminster Assembly Rooms, during July 2004:
Four heavy rock bands – three from Warminster and one from Frome – played at Warminster Assembly Hall last Saturday evening, raising funds for Cancer Research UK.
Kicking off were No Manual Labour, a four-piece who have been together for just under a year, having all met at school. They are Kane Thomas on lead vocals and guitar, Tim Arnold on bass, Pete Holman on lead guitar, and Fabian Shingleton on drums. Their set of six self-composed songs combined heavy rock and blues, into a crash of Iron Maiden, Bad Religion and Eric Clapton.
Their opening number Kane Wilson lured the audience into the hall from outside, in time for the second song You Don’t Know with its question “Why do you always talk behind my back?” Then came the blues number, as yet untitled, with Arnold swapping bass guitar for the double bass, for an instrumental that started the first of the night’s head-banging. Then Tiny Penis, a song not about sexual inadequacy but dedicated to a person not particularly liked by the band (lead vocalist Kane Thomas went so far as to name the person in question when introducing the song). This led on to two more untitled pieces, and the set was all too quickly over.
Thomas afterwards admitted the gig hadn’t been one of the band’s best performances but said “We enjoyed it and we’ve got more gigs ahead of us, including one on Wednesday at Kingdown when we shall do a longer, 45 minute set, in front of a bigger audience.”
Next up were SRG, a hardcore punk cross metal rock band, heavily influenced by Strike Anywhere, Rise Against, Thought Riot punk and Iron Maiden, Three Inches Of Blood and Kill Switch Engage metal. SRG are Damian Milburn on lead vocals and bass, Jonny Randall on guitar and back-up vocals, Jake Hindley also on guitar, and Jon Rudin on drums. After their intro they ripped into five self-penned songs, beginning with Wake Up. During the second, A Song Of Defiance, Damian’s guitar strap broke but he persevered with the help of the audience front line, and on into These Dark Days with its haunting lyrics – “Asphyxiate on these black clouds we’ve created, Indoctrinate your hateful lies to each of us.” And on they rocked with Neglect Of A Nation, concluding with Unite As One Refuse Resist, threatening “We will fight back, We will not fall,” which was echoed by the worked-up crowd, chanting as one, until Rudin’s planned solo at the finish was brought to an abrupt halt when the drum kit collapsed!
After the gig Damian said “SRG were spot on. Jonny, Jon and Jake were amazing.”
The gig then turned to broken relationships with the third of the night’s bands – No More Heroes – namely Alex Makwana on lead guitar and vocals, Nathan Cable on bass guitar and vocals, and Kieran Thomas on drums and additional vocals. Nothing But The Truth was their opening and the first number on their just released 4 track cd single. Then came The Empty Feeling and Untitled, taking the crowd with them into Confusion, the heaviest song of their set.
“It started off cool I’m feeling so good, happy that I found someone but time has changed, good and bad, I feel as if I’m losing my mind,” laments Alex as he recalls a girlfriend he says prevented NMH from progressing. But progress they have, this being their first gig since January, and Let’s Forget and Lost Love, two more of the band’s compositions took them to their cover of the Clash’s White Riot, but only when they had cajoled Mia Roman-Burgess to do the vocals. A friend of the band and the former singer with Viscious Mullet, Mia had to be dragged to the microphone, before bringing NMH’s set to its 70s revisited punk finale.
With the Warminster bands over, the headliners, Baysix, from Frome, were on. Unfortunately for Tom Dimery, guitar and vocals, Rich Dimery, bass, Joel Peat, guitar, and TK, drums, the crowd had diminished, which prompted Tom to quip “There’s less people here because the mums and dads of the other bands have gone home!”
Baysix, influenced by Sick Of It All, Agnostic Front and Madball, stormed fast and furious through about a dozen numbers including Five On One, Nine Till Five, This Time, Take It Back, Time To Do This Right, and Wipe Away The Scars, as well as other tracks from their debut cd album Death By Misadventure, which was recorded at Product 23 Studio near Frome and was released on 22nd March.
Rich Dimery tripped over during the set but unabashed he continued playing, while led on his back on the floor, his head against TK’s drum kit. He soon got back up on his feet though and continued as manic as ever. Baysix bowed out with Broke Me Not and Insecurities, again from their album which Metal Hammer has described as “dashing between Screamo and Hardcore.”
Ten o’clock came, the gig was over, and it was time for Darren Smith, from Salisbury, the proprietor of Bumblebee Promotions, to count up the money and consider the night’s show. He said “The crowd was small, and a small crowd in a large hall doesn’t make an atmosphere, but it’s turned out well. This is the first time I’ve done this in Warminster and it’s made a profit. At least £150, probably more, has been made for Cancer Research UK, which is excellent. There are some gigs we put on and they lose money. We were fortunate tonight because Warminster Town Council assisted us financially with the use of the hall. They’ve been very good about this. I can’t thank them enough for their help.”