It came as no surprise that the evening was moved from the Edge of the Wedge into the main venue due to popular demand on ticket sales, after all with three great bands on offer who wouldn’t want to make the most of their Sunday night.
TRICORN
Local boys Tricorn opened up the proceedings with their crushing take on the stoner rock scene, their set may have been hampered through breaking strings causing the need for some “technical difficulties music” but this didn’t distract from the heavy churning guitars and great solos.
Frontman Billy has an impressive voice, one of which would do the likes of Corrosion of Conformity proud and with possibly Portsmouth’s hardest working bass players Adam Hatton in the fold, Tricorn are a definite force to be reckoned with.
DESERT STORM
Continuing the evening of stoner rock were Desert Storm, who with four albums under their belt don’t look as though their letting up with this years’ release in “Horizontal Life” – a big slab of doom rock that sounds as though it’s from the deep south of America rather than that of their Oxford roots.
It’s not all about the rock n roll though as Chris Benoist laid down some funky bass lines, whilst the blues influences became more apparent mid set, making for a performance that you couldn’t help but get you’re groove on to.
KARMA TO BURN
Having recently parted ways with their bass player it was an amusing but touching moment to hear Karma to Burn come on to the sounds of Bill Withers “Just the Two of us” given they were already down to a three piece soon after their debut album several years ago.
Although losing a vocalist meant guitarist and founding member William Mecum was able to continue making Karma to Burn an instrumental band as they had always set out to, some may have thought losing a bass player would take something away from the live performance, but then again this was always going to about the guitar licks.
So unsurprisingly then this was pure riff after riff, song titles are replaced with random numbers here in order to drill home the raw power of the guitar. This duo maintained their stage presence and although there may not have been a bassist on stage this gave the drummer more scope for drum fills, as at times William Mecum stepped to the back in order to give his fingers a well-deserved rest.
With their instrumentals Karma to Burn often stay away from any over complicated guitar parts but still come up with tunes that become instantly recognisable as “Twenty” from the album “Wild, Wonderful Purgatory” gets a slightly higher reception than that of the rest of the set, showing that not only was the whole night a great line-up but Karma to Burn definitely have a solid fan base who appreciate their place in the stoner rock world.
