The Stone Gods : Temple of Rock

Expectations were high as old Darkness fans and friends & family filled a sold-out venue.

Serpico

Support was provided by Minerva who played a slower, more blues/rock/soul music. A bit more rapport with the audience might have helped rather than a lot of serious looks, but they went down well enough. Maybe they should lighten up a bit?

Second on were Serpico, who have a straight ahead heavy rock sound which was much more in keeping with the vibe. They’re from Edinburgh, although singer Mikey Serpico doesn’t sound particularly Scottish.

He had to get through the first song with the audience unable to hear him until the mixing desk sorted it out. After that the band ingratiated themselves with the audience – priming them for the main attraction.

Sleeve it out

It was the end of Stone Gods’ tour and it showed as the band bounced onto the stage with confidence and got straight into Burn The Witch – the lead track from the forthcoming debut EP.

It instantly shows that the band don’t sound like The Darkness. Richie Edwards is a great frontman – but he’s definitely his own man as opposed to being a replacement for Justin Hawkins. His banter is bonhomous, commanding and yet self-deprecating at times – and he never resorted to metal cliches.

The ceiling speaks

That said, writing a song called Burn The Witch does rather plant your flag firmly in the metal camp.  BTW also reverts to Darkness type with the double entendre “the flames are going to lick around your wizard’s sleeve”. They obviously didn’t they get this out of their system with Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End)!

The song showcases the band’s tougher guitar sound – ending with a Metallica/Anthrax-esque guitar workout. It’s suitably epic.

The band is almost instantly on the home straight after that with a run of tunes which sound catchy and harder-edged at the same time. Dan’s acknowledged influences are still in place, but they have the songs to back them up – much like The Darkness did.

The crowd’s reaction suggests this band is going to develop a big following pretty quickly with the release of the self-released debut EP in February with an album to follow in the summer. They plan to build it slowly this time, which presumably means no support slots with the likes of Robbie Williams this time round.

For me, it’s one of those gigs where the energy coming off the stage is palpable and you wish you were up there spanking the plank. If only I’d practised a bit harder…

• The dreaded Press

Things are looking promising for the Stone Gods set long before the band take the stage. Despite The Wedgewood Rooms playing host to a regular procession of rock and metal bands, it’s not often that you see full-stack guitar amps on stage there.

Tonight, there are four.

There’s a definite sense of expectation in the audience, anyway – because Stone Gods are a reincarnation of The Darkness, without Justin and his novelty catsuits and with a new bass player.

However, as soon as the band take the stage and launch into “Burn The Witch” it’s clear that Stone Gods are a different beast entirely – for a start, the other musicians aren’t obscured by an immense ego prancing at centre-stage. The new frontman is one Richie Edwards, promoted from being Dan Hawkins’s guitar tech – and while he doesn’t have Justin’s towering vanity, he does have that essential charisma that a rock singer needs.

Richie’s not short on enthusiasm, either – it’s plain to see he’s having the time of his life up there, and he’s determined to drag us along as well. He takes the risk of reminding the audience that Sunday is considered the “dog day” of touring – when it’s hard to get an audience to turn up, let alone get excited – and he invites us to help him turn Sunday into Saturday with some crowd participation.

We’ve all seen this tactic fall very flat before, but Richie’s infectious energy carries it off. Despite his vaguely tough-guy image, he comes across more like a playful puppy who’ll love you for ever if you’ll just throw the stick for him one more time …

His confident antics take some of the focus away from his voice – which is by no means bad, but is either tired or in need of a bit more training, to judge by the moments where gruff verges on ragged. But a vigorous touring schedule should polish it up nicely, and it’s set off against the perfect backdrop – Stone Gods are about as good a non-covers classic rock act as you’re likely to hear anywhere.

Stone Gods have sampled widely from the back catalogue of British rock to produce a set that is much heavier and less poppy than anything The Darkness ever released. Never do Stone Gods really veer into full-on metal, at least not in the modern sense of the term, but there’s plenty of crunch and bite from the seemingly endless selection of freshly-tuned Gibson guitars.

And while the over-the-top comedy of their previous incarnation is notable by its absence, there’s a definite playful sense of fun to the songs. “Brought A Knife To A Gun-Fight” plays up to the rock’n’roll tough-guy persona with a swear-along chorus that’s already known fondly by the audience; while “Don’t Drink The Water” is what Iron Maiden might have produced had they decided to write a song about package holidays in Alicante.

There’s plenty of fun in the performance, too. Richie’s all over the stage, doing the chicken-nod or rock-star gurns (sometimes both at once) or egging on his band-mates, and the spotlight is on him for the whole set, quite literally. The other cutting edge to the Stone Gods attack is, of course, Dan Hawkins’s guitar playing.

Always somewhat overshadowed by his flamboyant brother in his previous band, Dan gets a chance to shine on his own terms in Stone Gods. All the lead guitar work is left to him, and there’s no denying that he’s a spectacular soloist, pulling out something fresh and appropriate for each track, always fitting with the style but adding some extra zing to the proceedings.

It’s a rollicking set, and never is there a moment’s hint that the band are disappointed by the turn-out. Like true professionals, Stone Gods play the show as if they were playing a sold-out arena and make everyone who came feel that they got their money’s worth.

In keeping with the big-show philosophy, they make the audience wait for the inevitable encore before Richie returns and thanks them effusively – almost gushingly – and belts out two acoustic driven end-pieces with the band grinning away behind him, before bidding us all a warm good night and heading backstage. Stone Gods put on a sterling show this evening, and if they work this hard for every audience they’ll end the tour with plenty of respect.

I doubt they’ll ever be a chart-bothering band, but I don’t think that’s what they’re after. It’s plain to see that not all the lessons they took away from their previous experiences were negative; Stone Gods deserve to put those lessons to practical use for some time to come.

www.hardrockhouse.com

Stone Gods/Serpico

Newcastle Carling Academy

Jan 20th 2008

Review & Photos – Al Hey & Steve Cummings

There are probably a lot of people out there who are unaware of who the Stone Gods are and so, to set the scene, let me tell you that the band is made up of three former members of The Darkness in the shape of Dan Hawkins, Richie Edwards and Ed Graham alongside new bassist Toby Macfarlane. The strange scenario surrounding this, the band’s debut UK headline tour, is that they currently have no product out to tour behind,  the only tangible evidence of the bands existence being three pieces of music posted on their website and MySpace page, two of which being only short samples.  To make matters worse advertising in the media has been very low key and, given all of this there had to be question marks as to whether anyone would anybody actually turn up.

Well word of mouth and the internet are still a very powerful tool and, as a result, Newcastle’s Carling Academy was pleasingly full before Stone Gods took to the stage and support band Serpico kicked off the evening’s entertainment. A young band hailing from Edinburgh Serpico serve up a brand of what could be described as punk metal which delivered with enthusiasm ,every member putting in an energetic performance. At times however things sounded a little bit too frantic but that could be down to the obvious adrenalin rush of the live stage and the decision to try out some new songs. In saying that you had to give the band ten out ten for sheer work rate but, at the end of the set, the applause was more polite recognition than appreciation.

And so to the evening’s main event, the first live show in Newcastle by the Stone Gods. Even before the band took to the stage there was a tangible sense of expectation in the venue as those people who had made the effort to come along were very much taking a leap of faith in a band who at this point are an unknown quantity. Within the first few minutes of this show that all changed when the quartet opened up with “Burn The Witch”. Up until this tour only a clip of the song has been available on the bands website and, if you’ve already heard that and been impressed, wait until you hear the full version. Following up with “You Brought A Knife To A Gun Fight” within two songs Stone Gods had literally stormed the Academy and yet things were only just getting started.

It’s obvious that these guys are pretty seasoned professionals and even with a new band, unknown songs and a small venue they know how to entertain. Indeed Richie Edwards already has the frontman role down to a fine art. Handing a fiver over to a member of the audience and asking for someone to go buy a Jack & Coke from the bar was a stroke of genius, as was wandering out onto the balcony and “borrowing” someone’s camera to take shots from the stage. If nothing else it engenders a sense of bonding between band and audience and this bond only grew as the set progressed. As for the music well it’s harder and heavier than anything The Darkness released. Living Dead for instance has a main guitar riff that Metallica would be proud of, mixed with the gusto of the main riff from Blue Oyster Cults “Godzilla”. That will possibly have many rock fans salivating at the mouth and to be honest until you hear this song words can’t really do it justice. The song even has a tempo change that would make Motorhead smile with approval.  Elsewhere “Don’t Drink The Water” contained some gorgeous harmony guitar phrases reminiscent of The Allman Brothers whilst “Lazy Bones” is rock song writing of the highest order,  a great mixture of acoustic and electric guitars allowing the band to build the song up to a dramatic conclusion and, judging by all the lighters in the air, everyone identified with the sentiment of this song.

Perhaps the highlight of the night was “Starting Something” which, arguably, should be the lead off single when the debut album is finally released. It has commercial worldwide smash written all over it, it’s that good. The final song of the main set, “Defend Or Die”, which again featured more dual harmony guitar work brought to mind prime time Thin Lizzy,  before morphing into basically a thrash metal workout. An encore was never in any doubt and the band returned to delivery “Magdalene Street” before the evening drew to a close with “Beero” – an anthem in every sense with a rhythm that throbbed and pulsed.

On this evidence, and based on the fact the audience reaction was as loud as anything I’ve heard in the Academy 2, the Stone Gods have a bright future ahead of them. Richie Edwards possesses a voice that, at times sounds like Bryan Adams or Steven Tyler and he proved to be a performer in every sense of the word, interacting with the crowd at every available opportunity and throwing his heart and soul into his vocals. The other, and perhaps most important, thing is that the Stone Gods appear to have the material that is going to surprise a lot of people. Following the implosion that was the end of The Darkness it would have been easy for these guys to sit back and lick their wounds. Instead what they’ve come up with potentially has far more appeal to the core rock crowd in the UK than just about anything their former outfit released. If they’re given a fighting chance, and past associations are not held against them, then they may just surprise a whole lot of people.

My Chemical Toilet

Up-And-Coming-Acts – Stone Gods

Ok, so technically these guys aren’t new to the music business but as the Stone Gods commenced their first UK headline tour on Thursday, they were still unsure of the reaction they’d receive. Previously performing as The Darkness, the band (now with new bassist, Toby Macfarlaine) was forced to make decisions about their future when catsuit-loving lead singer, Justin Hawkins, left and didn’t come back.

Richie Edwards, ex-guitar technician, joined The Darkness in 2005 and I was lucky enough to catch them play at a German rock festival. I think I can safely say Rich pleasantly surprised most of the crowd when he took to the mic for an AC/DC medley. So it was no surprise to find that he now heads up the Stone Gods with his classic rock voice, creating a sound which makes me think of a harder, heavier Bryan Adams. Of course guitarist Dan Hawkins describes their sound slightly differently, suggesting “Appetite for Destruction meets the Metallica Black album, or Back in Black by AC/DC meets something as melodic as Night at the Opera by Queen”.[via outline] Either way, it’s pretty flippin’ good.

Thursday night the Stone Gods opened their tour with a gig in Bristol’s ‘Fleece’ – a fabulously small pubby setting, and one of my favourite venues. The room was fully equipped with classicly longhaired headbangers and an assortment of other oddities, all eager to hear what was on offer. Thankfully, it was not The Darkness. There wasn’t a single squeal, other than the girly yelps of my friend and I (I blame the vodka).

While I know having arena tours and suchlike tucked under your belt should help refine your performances, it was still really satisfying to see how Richie and co. commanded the crowd, encouraging sing-along air-punch “Oi!”s and going for a bit of a riff-time wander among the fans. As a live act, I’m definitely sold and would recommend them to any rockers who get the chance. Just catch them now while they’re playing the small gigs because I’m sure the Stone Gods will be heading for bigger venues very soon.