Orchid Trip live review
A review of the band Orchid Trip, who played their new album in full at The Prince Albert, on March 8th 2008.
Orchid Trip are a Brighton based punk rock/grunge band, a three piece who have two members from Eastern Europe and one from the UK. They have recently recorded their new album, also called Orchid Trip, with Steve Albini (founding member of Shellac and producer of The Pixies and Nirvana amongst others) in Chicago. This gig was their album launch party.
The ratings
Music
The band started out with two tracks from their first album, which were purely instrumental, with complex time signatures and Mars Volta like guitar riffs. The remainder of the songs did have lyrics and a more conventional structure to them, although some lyrics were in another language which is unusual to see in England. The tempo was pretty much the same throughout, which did lead my interest to wane a little as the gig wore on. A shorter set, perhaps 4 or 5 of their best songs, would have lead to a better experience.
3/5
Performance
The lead singer of the band seemed to be quite nervous when talking, although this didn’t come through when performing the songs themselves. All members seemed very energetic, particularly the drummer, who eventually managed to crack his high hat, causing a 15 min break mid gig, which they never really recovered from in my mind. Some people seemed to leave after this point, and the delay meant I missed the end of the gig as I had somewhere else to be. Still, that was out of their control, and the certainly tried hard.
4/5
Banter
Banter was limited, although the lead singer mentioned he’d been worrying about how many people would turn up the night before, thankfully lots did.
3/5
Audience
The turnout was high although most of the audience seemed to be friends of the band, but it was a launch party after all. Most were also Eastern European, I wasn’t able to determine the exact country, and this made the night seem a lot more exciting, almost like we were somewhere else in another country. One guy with pink hair made some excellent attempts to start a mosh pit, but was sadly thwarted by lack of interest from the people around him. On the whole the audience seemed to be into the music, although for friends of the band I would have hoped for a bit more excitement.
3/5 (5/5 for the guy with the pink hair though)
Overall
Not my cup of tea, but a fun night out, something a little different, and more exotic than your average punk rock band thanks to the Eastern European influences.
3/5
Find out more
Visit the bands official website for photos, news and upcoming gigs although the more useful Orchid Trip myspace contains the same info but also lets you sample some of their tracks.
You can soon buy the album from local record shops and online in iTunes.
See the band live on the 20th March at The Providence in Brighton.