ninehertz

[img "/incoming/wenn_image_wenn1725525_54_3311_5-1.jpg"right"]Defenestration, Raging Speedhorn, P.O.D... I’ve been on a nostalgia trip the whole week ahead of Hundred Reasons’ farewell mini tour where they will be playing their classic 2002 album Ideas Above Our Station supported by Hell is For Heroes playing 2003's Neon Handshake as well as muso faves Cable. It was kind of a really unusual gig in the sense that both bands were intending to split up at the finale and well, bow out gracefully I suppose.

I was wondering beforehand what kind of people would attend this gig? Turns out it was the Movember demographic; guys in their mid to late 20’s, ETID fans perhaps, office jobs? Some with wedding rings, some Dads maybe, slightly paunch- looked like the bands themselves, the last decade etched on people’s faces by way of semi-ironic charity tash. A rotund beardy scouser in the smoking area said, “I’m 27 years old and this is the first gig I’ve been to in ages where there’s no little d*ckheads running around” yeah mate, we were those little d*ckheads once, but I kinda agree with your sentiment.

Kicking off the time machine of Dinosaur Emo is Hell is for Heroes. For those who don't know- were/are/will remain a fantastic UK post-hardcore band that are responsible for mosh pit classic, You Drove Me To It, which was a favourite of mine from the rock clubs of yesteryear. Hell Is For Heroes were pretty cult at the time, I think they are more so cult now. Followed by the more radio friendly and commercially successful fellow southerners Hundred Reasons- you might remember If I Could and Silver if not, YoutTube it, cue early noughties flashbacks.

It's not as though I’m lamenting endings and the passage of time here, I just love the era these songs were written in, regardless of whether I participated in it or not. Keeping up with contemporary music can be exhausting when a lot of it is uniform, doing the same trite things to impress the same audiences. Revisiting music from a decade ago can be surprisingly refreshing even though it’s so familiar. For example, I feel like I slightly took for granted Placebo at the time by dismissing them as Q magazine, radio friendly pop-rock. Now it appears their musical influences have fallen out of favour and Brian Molko’s androgyny seems pretty much unique and out of place- put simply, no-one sounds like this nowadays...feeling this I watch the gig. Like Placebo, Hundred Reasons and Hell is for Heroes have some brilliant songs that are steeped in the 90's but were testing new ground, taking the post hardcore sound from bands like At The Drive In and making them a very British affair. I suppose the contemporaries of the two "farewell" bands on that night were Biffy Clyro- look at THEM now... gettin' paper.

I had a fantastic night, Hundred Reasons and Hell is for Heroes stayed classy. Cable were cool, and for myself, it made me want to look again at other bands from that time and what influenced them to write those really good songs and look outside my immediate 2012 frame of reference.

Both bands at some point said, “thanks for still givin' a fuck”- Think that pretty much sums it up.