May
10
Riviera - Cambridge Hotel
Filed Under Gig Reviews | Leave a Comment
Let me start by saying that a night of borderline metal core isn’t the way I would usually chose to spend my only night off, however, with the buzz over recently formed Safe Hands, together with the fact that I loved Riviera at Newcastles’ Strikeback Festival tonight’s line-up was too good a show to miss.
Forming in late 2006, Safe Hands, is essentially the brain-child of various members of ex-Newcastle bands. Their on-stage energy is what you get when you take the most skilled and seasoned musicians, from some really popular local bands, throw them into a saucepan of potential, add a dash of metal-core and let simmer. Whilst in retrospect they haven’t been playing together for all that long, its obvious that Safe Hands are rapidly gaining popularity from the local scene. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the opening act on a Wednesday night at the Glass House draw such a crowd. Combining their technicality with their huge sound, Safe Hands are a band who you can easily imagine playing alongside big name acts, in big venues in the future.
Mesha were a late addition to the bill, hailing from Sydney, the 3 piece pop-rock outfit’s claim to fame is having had played at the Taste of Chaos tour in 2005 at the Sydney Superdome. Aside from the fact that this band was completely unsuited to tonight’s line up, I found them to be really repetitive. There was an essence potential, but overall every song sounded the same. I hate to say it, however, Mesha are a band who should stick to playing covers, I feel that they are trying too hard to emulate classic pop-rock bands, and in doing so their originals just aren’t original, its all been heard before.
Queenslands’ six-piece outfit Riviera exploded onto the stage with a loud, energetic technicality and I immediately understood what all the fuss was about. Their extensive, self booked tour dates are an early indication that this band is going places.
In the recent months Riviera have played with a collection of big name Australian, and international acts, ‘Every time we score a good support locally or internationally we are stoked whether we like the band or not’. On playing with Unwritten Law, Riviera say ‘we played with Unritten Law and their typical fan base probably wouldn’t like our style but we just went out and gave it our all and it ended up going down really well’.
The band added singer / songwriter Henry to their line up mid 2006 after having to let go of original singer Chay early that year. ‘Henry is a much more versatile singer. Our newer style is more aggressive and to compliment this we obtained Craig to handle our screaming…We have been playing better, his voice is tremendous, it adds another layer to our sound and thickens it up a bit at the same time’.
Last time the band was in town was for Newcastle’s Strikeback Festival, ‘We were stoked to get on that show considering the lineup. We played okay considering how nervous we were. We always enjoy our trips to Newcastle, it was our first interstate show location and is like a second home to us.’
Riviera haven’t had a release since 2005’s EP ‘Evacuate. You’ll Choke.’, however I’ve been told that they have been demo-ing some of the new material in a Brisbane studio. ‘We’re taking our time with getting the new CD together to make sure we get it right. We have no definite timeframe but it will be out in the second half of the new year, we will be touring heavily to support it.’
The combination of an incredibly hard hitting drummer, technically brilliant riffs and genre defying harmonies make Riviera a band you should defiantly keep both eyes on.
Recent Comments: