Performing: House Of Lords, Estrella, Maxx Explosion, Sweet Loraine
Location: Trieste / Macaki klub / Italy
Date: Saturday, 05.04.2014
After a long drought, the day of melodic rock’s resurrection has finally come! And a seriously loaded one at that. A four-band bill in Trieste. Make that three (or, conditionally, four) bands. But let’s take it from the top. House Of Lords have a new record out, “Precious Metal” (2014), and they have to present it to European audiences too! Trieste included! It’s gone nine in the evening! On stage stand Scottish hopefuls Estrella. Some 40 curious souls, with no particular expectations, watched from a cautious distance to see what these up-and-coming youngsters had to say! The quartet, which features no fewer than three Gunn brothers (vocalist Paul Gunn, guitarist Luke and bassist Nathan T.), is an extremely tight, well-oiled hard rock outfit with a hefty dose of hooliganism. The band cooks up riffs that are fantastically baked with a superb sense of musicality, flirting with the classic-era hard rock that flourished on British soil! From the urges of The Who to the vibes of The Sweet in the eighties, or even Uriah Heep in the era of the albums “Abominog” and “Head First”. They smashed out one track after another and dodged the syndrome that so often sticks to every opening act. The syndrome of generic unoriginality and, therefore, boredom. Estrella don’t know it at all.
No letting up. Outstanding riffs, outstanding showmanship. Luke spun around theatrically with his guitar during the solos, as if he’d been put in front of a battery of cameras for a video shoot. Brilliant use of the stage and of positioning on it! Luke and Nathan often stood shoulder to shoulder in the instrumental middle-eight passages, but above all it was vocalist Paul who won us over, with his excellent stage presence and a signature voice that at times gets close to a younger Steven Tyler. With a character and a stage act studied down to the details, they strung together songs from the studio debut “Come Out To Play” (2012), namely: Chance Of A Lifetime, Party,, Shout It (I Wanna Hear), Do It Til’ You Drop, Rocker Lily, She’s Got it in One Love. We can safely say we got the most competent show of the night right at the start. Without a single backing track. Just pure play at adrenaline speed and unbridled testosterone-shaking! This is rock ‘n’ roll! And a band you absolutely have to check out. During their set the space in front of the stage filled up nicely and quite a few people thoroughly shook their limbs and neck vertebrae, because Estrella are truly a band that grabs you in an instant with its powerful character!¨
Our old acquaintances Sweet Loraine are already on stage. The Trieste band, with Slovenian singer David Žorž, has been playing the classics of the legendary Uriah Heep for years. The guys previously opened for House Of Lords in November 2009 in Ronchi dei Legionari and in February 2012 in Trieste (the Etnoblog club). Sweet Loraine played a full hour of classic Heep repertoire. From the openers Look At Yourself, Bird Of Prey, Sweet Loraine, Sunrise through to Too Scared To Run, Stealin’, Gypsy, Free ‘n Easy, Easy Livin’ and Tears In My Eyes. It’s a demanding job, but the seasoned Sweet Loraine pull it off with distinction and competence. Led by the maestro Alex Falcone on Hammond organ, with a rock-solid rhythm section and a solid approximation of the original colors of Heep’s guitar sound, Sweet Lotraine conjured up plenty of interesting moments for Uriah Heep devotees. Still, you could feel the crowd wasn’t as into it this time as it was at their gig, also in Trieste ahead of House Of Lords, two years ago. The venue noticeably emptied out during Sweet Loraine’s set. Maybe the “too long” hour-long set had something to do with it? On top of that, the sound slipped a bit during the performance. The keyboards were decidedly too loud, with vocals and guitar not pushed up enough.
Before House Of Lords, though, we saw one more act. That was Maxx Explosion, who hadn’t been officially announced before the show. It’s really just House Of Lords minus James Christian. So next up on stage were Jimi Bell on guitar, bassist Chris McCarville (bass guitar), and the “little wiry man” on drums, B.J. Zampa. The good-natured James Christian let the guys present their studio debut “Forever,” released last year, in fifteen minutes! Roughly ten of those minutes covered three songs: Famous, Devil’s Locomotive and Can’t Stop Falling In Love. All I can say is this. You absolutely have to check out the album “Forever,” and Maxx Explosion have won a new fan in me! Sadly, their album was nowhere to be seen among the official merch!
A few minutes of “silence” followed, and they crawled by painfully slowly. The guys re-arranged all the logistics once more for the House Of Lords set, because James Christian would soon join them on stage. As usual, the show opened with the classic Sahara! With the pre-recorded intro, of course. For years now, Christian has used backing tracks at House Of Lords shows that carry all the backing harmonies and keyboards. Hence the earlier remark that with Estrella we got the most competent performance of the night.
The atmospheric, epic AOR march of an opener quickly whipped up the crowd, which packed itself in tight in front of the stage and started happily celebrating the deeds of its beloved band. Quite a few visitors from Slovenia and neighboring Croatia could be spotted in the club! Christian has been through hard times in recent years, having had to beat cancer. He even wrote his solo studio album “Lay It All On Me” about it, which came out last July. So he’s evidently pulled through happily! Before long the brand-new song Battle rang out, followed by a jump back to 2011 and the previous album “Big Money” with a performance of the title track, which showed that the song had caught on with quite a few people in the crowd, who sang along to the chorus!
You can tell Christian doesn’t sing like he used to, that his voice is a little worn, especially in the highest registers, where James has to adapt the vocal lines. On this night the mix was an especially big problem, far from ideal. Time and again you couldn’t make out the lead vocal at all in the “rustle” of all the pre-recorded vocal-harmony tracks, which is a big minus for the band. Still, Christian is being “pulled along” by three fantastic musicians who play as if in a trance. Once again, the excellent guitarist Jimi Bell stood out in particular, stunning us with extreme speed and absolute control of his instrument at the same time. It’s incredible how the guitarist manages to keep his playing so clean while running through such hellishly fast note sequences. All three musicians also got the chance to really stretch out in their own spots in the set, showing off their chops in improvised sections. For example, after the big hit and ballad Love Don’t Lie, originally by Stan Bush, Christian left the stage and the band played the Maxx Explosion instrumental Demon Wheel, which flowed into McCarville’s bass guitar solo spot. Christian comes back on stage with a Gibson LP guitar! After BJ Zampa’s breakneck drum show, the band crashes in with two guitars for another hit, Can’t Find My Way Home, originally by Blind Faith. The band backed up the promotion of the new album with an excellent Swimmin’ with the Sharks and Permission to Die, while the classics I Wanna Be Loved, Pleasure Palace and Slip of the Tongue, with its long guitar intro, satisfied everyone who’d been waiting for the real meat of the set, the older songs. With those, the band also wrapped up its set.
Only for the Trieste show did House Of Lords come back on stage exclusively and play two more songs that they aren’t playing on the current “Precious Metal” tour. These are two tracks from the album “World Upside Down”, namely S.O.S. and These Are The Times, where even the deaf could pick up on Christian’s vocal wear and tear.
The event was outstanding. Estrella were the real surprise, the big riddle of the night. For those of you who look for perfection in the stage delivery of a set, you could even say Estrella’s performance stole the show from House Of Lords! Estrella truly laid it all on the line and blew away absolutely everyone in the club. Sweet Loraie remain a reliable, high-quality “tribute to Uriah Heep” fortress, though sadly the feeling didn’t go away that people simply weren’t interested enough in the show. Everyone had come primarily for House Of Lords, who fired up just as expected. Christian is a great leader! A seasoned veteran, yet by no means unapproachable. After the show, every single member of the band spent time with fans of their music, and the partying in the Macaki club went on long, long into the night.
Sadly, gigs like this near Slovenia are extremely few and far between. It seems we “lone riders” of melodic rock will have to keep fighting on, and keep driving several hundred kilometers from Slovenia abroad in the future too. But it’s worth it. House of Lords delivered exactly what we expected. A gorgeous adventure through their first two albums and the period from 2006 onward, leaning on no fewer than four songs from the excellent comeback album “World Upside Down” (2006).
The chemistry between the backing trio of Bell, McCarville and Zampa is outstanding, and House Of Lords suck you in with the hypnotic magnetism of a thoroughly convincing set. As long as James Christian’s health holds up, there’s nothing to fear for the band’s future. New studio albums arrive in two-to-three-year cycles, and the new releases are followed by promotional tours. Luckily, always with a visit to good old Europe! May this trend continue for a long time.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
HOUSE OF LORDS:
1. Sahara
2. Big Money
3. Battle
4. Cartesian Dreams
5. Love Don’t Lie
6. Purgatorio Overture No. 2
7. Come to My Kingdom
8. Permission to Die
9. Demon Wheel (Bass solo)
10. I’m Free
11. Swimmin’ with the Sharks
12. Drumagogery (Drum solo)
13. Can’t Find My Way Home
14. Rock Bottom
15. I Wanna Be Loved
16. Pleasure Palace
18. Guitar Solo
19. Slip of the Tongue
—encore—
20. S.O.S.
21. These Are The Times
