Kittie, Manchester DBH 08/02/2002
When most American bands venture forth into Britain they usually get small venues, last time Kittie were in Manchester they played to the Hop And Grape (the closet above the DBH) with a then unknown Raging Speedhorn. Less than two years later they are back but without Fallon as she decided to drop out of the band last year, but new album "Oracle" is one their heaviest work to date.
First up are SiKth, it's hard to pin-point their exact genre as the six-piece bounce around the stage churning out soul crushing riffs and bouncy as hell bass slaps. At one point one of the two singers becomes very reminiscent of Jonathon Davis of over-hyped nu-metallers Korn. The other singer looks like he could be out of Lost Prophets, but alas he is not.
SiKth then tell the crowd that the next song is on a cover CD for a rock magazine, probably Rock Sound. The pit then goes several shades of ape for this song, me thinks I shall be finding this magazine or their album very soon. Nothing special live but they are a group of talented artists, their album should be killer.
Next up are Shadow's Fall, oh dear. Big scary old skoolers playing catchy nu-metal, no mate don't think so. Couldn't sit through these as they were just unbelievably bad! I decided I had better things to do, this meant get a free cup of water and buy a crunchie. But you've got to give credit to the lead singers dreads which are down to his knees.
Ah, Kittie. Not famed for their live shows but here to give it a go anyway, Mercedes (drums) takes to the stage first. She starts to play a slow drum-beat over some feed-back, and a big beast of a man comes out. The audience think "Holy Crap, It's Kerry King Of Slayer!!", but it isn't. He's filling in for Fallon and he is quite a beast, Morgan and Talena then take the stage and perform the title-track from "Oracle" and then for the fans of their earlier stuff they play
"Spit" that gets more of a reaction from everyone.
"How You Doing Mother-F*cking Manchester??" Morgan shouts, this would be the first of many big-headed shouts from the foul-mouthed front-woman. Everyone shouts back, then they burst into another couple of songs from their album. Kittie keep teasing the crowd with gems from the first album "Spit" like "Do You Think I'm A Whore?", it's at this point I get dragged into the pit by a big beast of a skin-head. It's at this point I see someone I knew and tried talking to them but I really shouldn't have stood still in the circle, some guy jumped onto my face. It was quite fun, and then some little 9-year old asked me to help him up onto the crowd. Aw! He was tiny and I'm a big guy so I picked him up and threw him.
The heavy version of "Paper-Doll" goes down well and after a couple more songs Kittie depart the stage. The crowd go berserk as they want to hear the signature Kittie song: "Brackish". The familiar guitar picking at the start is played by the fake Kerry King and everywhere in the whole room just goes mental, it's a no holds barred ruck that I join in. The big skin-head from before shakes my hand and throws me again, d'oh. The final goodbyes are said and Kittie leave the stage triumphant.
Now, running to get the train is a problem as it leaves at ten past and it's eleven o'clock. This involves me and my friends running down Oxford Road and falling asleep on the train. Over-all Kittie weren't as good as they were the first time round, but still good. Maybe next time they will have improven.
When most American bands venture forth into Britain they usually get small venues, last time Kittie were in Manchester they played to the Hop And Grape (the closet above the DBH) with a then unknown Raging Speedhorn. Less than two years later they are back but without Fallon as she decided to drop out of the band last year, but new album "Oracle" is one their heaviest work to date.
First up are SiKth, it's hard to pin-point their exact genre as the six-piece bounce around the stage churning out soul crushing riffs and bouncy as hell bass slaps. At one point one of the two singers becomes very reminiscent of Jonathon Davis of over-hyped nu-metallers Korn. The other singer looks like he could be out of Lost Prophets, but alas he is not.
SiKth then tell the crowd that the next song is on a cover CD for a rock magazine, probably Rock Sound. The pit then goes several shades of ape for this song, me thinks I shall be finding this magazine or their album very soon. Nothing special live but they are a group of talented artists, their album should be killer.
Next up are Shadow's Fall, oh dear. Big scary old skoolers playing catchy nu-metal, no mate don't think so. Couldn't sit through these as they were just unbelievably bad! I decided I had better things to do, this meant get a free cup of water and buy a crunchie. But you've got to give credit to the lead singers dreads which are down to his knees.
Ah, Kittie. Not famed for their live shows but here to give it a go anyway, Mercedes (drums) takes to the stage first. She starts to play a slow drum-beat over some feed-back, and a big beast of a man comes out. The audience think "Holy Crap, It's Kerry King Of Slayer!!", but it isn't. He's filling in for Fallon and he is quite a beast, Morgan and Talena then take the stage and perform the title-track from "Oracle" and then for the fans of their earlier stuff they play
"Spit" that gets more of a reaction from everyone.
"How You Doing Mother-F*cking Manchester??" Morgan shouts, this would be the first of many big-headed shouts from the foul-mouthed front-woman. Everyone shouts back, then they burst into another couple of songs from their album. Kittie keep teasing the crowd with gems from the first album "Spit" like "Do You Think I'm A Whore?", it's at this point I get dragged into the pit by a big beast of a skin-head. It's at this point I see someone I knew and tried talking to them but I really shouldn't have stood still in the circle, some guy jumped onto my face. It was quite fun, and then some little 9-year old asked me to help him up onto the crowd. Aw! He was tiny and I'm a big guy so I picked him up and threw him.
The heavy version of "Paper-Doll" goes down well and after a couple more songs Kittie depart the stage. The crowd go berserk as they want to hear the signature Kittie song: "Brackish". The familiar guitar picking at the start is played by the fake Kerry King and everywhere in the whole room just goes mental, it's a no holds barred ruck that I join in. The big skin-head from before shakes my hand and throws me again, d'oh. The final goodbyes are said and Kittie leave the stage triumphant.
Now, running to get the train is a problem as it leaves at ten past and it's eleven o'clock. This involves me and my friends running down Oxford Road and falling asleep on the train. Over-all Kittie weren't as good as they were the first time round, but still good. Maybe next time they will have improven.