Woah! TEETH!!! are absolute mentalists. In a good way. Vocalist Veronica So kicks off proceedings sporting some kind of warrior helmet, of which I only get a brief glimpse before her overzealous head-thrashing results in it falling off, never to be seen again.
Their electrifying experimental punk set concludes with quite possibly the most extreme stage invasion I've ever witnessed, with more people on stage than in the audience. 'Anyone else?' Veronica shrieks as she grabs people by the arm and hauls them onto the stage. It's utter madness: there are people banging drums, some are thrashing around wildly, while others are happily dancing along with their eyes closed. It's a suitably crazy finale to an equally crazy gig. GT
Dammit, I love pop-punk, and despite all those people claiming that The Mae Shi are, there's a rich vein of pop-punk running through these guys.
Plugging the same album for so long has turned the LA noise-pop outfit into a pretty effective live unit, and combine that with a wall-to-wall crowd at Vibe Bar and fireworks are pretty much inevitable. They don't disappoint tonight - crazy chanting vocals, arpeggios, and white parachute are all met with the kind of excitement reserved for a naked guy at a house party.
Oh, and they do that parachute thing at the end. DH
After being almost crushed to death in the melee that was The Mae Shi, it's weird to find the room thinned out this much for Abe Vigoda, but 10:30 is the death hour, and these guys competing with White Denim, Dananananaykroyd and Times New Viking doesn't seem to be helping matters.
Sparking up with their trademark 'chiming bells' guitar lines, they showcase the beautifully melodic tropical punk that seems to have everyone from here to Moscow bigging them up.
In fact the only down-side is Vibe Bar's PA that seems to just do treble and leaves us half-deaf with the sound of chiming guitars ringing in our ears. DH
Flowers of Sulphur at Cocomo
Amongst the chaos of the Stag and Dagger festival, a small band takes over the basement of Cocomo. The heat makes me think this is a bad idea but the mass of people crowding into the small room suggests otherwise.
It's quite evident from the equipment what to expect from Flowers of Sulphur. A solid back-line fronted by a man with too many keyboards and no microphone. But the band don't disappoint. They're experimental, musically impressive and have a guitarist with an intense dislike for holding his guitar in the conventional way. Enjoyable, but some vocals wouldn't have gone amiss. SL
Soy Un Caballo at The Legion
After all the excitement at Vibe Bar, we decide that we need a bit of a change of pace, so we grab a couple of tins from an offy on Brick Lane and head over to the Legion where the Electroacoustic Club have lined up a night of more laid-back sounds.
Getting in there as Belgian couple Soy Un Caballo begin their set, we're soon convinced we've made a mistake. It's not that the pair's blend of weightless folk and sweet choral refrains is bad, it's just that we're too hyper from the previous sonic battering and find it hard to get in the mood. We manage to twitch our way through the set before jogging down Curtain Road to Work It. DH
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