By David O’Neill.
This was part two of the delayed review writing from two very different but no less impressive recent gigs. The first time I saw Nothing More was in the Motorpoint in Cardiff in 2018 when they supported BFMV. That was a very impressive performance with Jonny Hawkins “driving” the mechanized Scorpion. Whilst this is not my usual genre of music, these are one of the “alt-rock” “prog metal” bands I will try to see if they are in the South Wales area (or just across the Bristol Channel for that matter!).
Not only was the musical offering different to the previous night’s offering (Fozzy), the introductory track of ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’ was a bit off piste for the musical offering we were about to be served up. Nonetheless despite the much younger crowd there was an apparent enthusiasm for the chorus.
Then the band came on with Jonny Hawkins in his customary stripped to the waist/shoes off attire. His lions main of curly hair was being thrown around in every sense of the word as he prowled and leapt around the stage. Opening up with ‘Let Em Burn’, the crowd knew what they were in for, pristine musicality and showmanship on the back of clever lyrical writing. ‘Do You Really Want It?’ demonstrated this by the lyrics “everybody wants to change the world, but one thing’s clear, no one ever wants to change themselves” – great observational songwriting joined in by the crowd at the outro.
Thus it continued with the incredible variety of musical sound not stopping to take breath, probably a good time to talk about ‘Don’t Stop’, the basslines of Daniel Oliver and rapid fire drumming of Ben Anderson underpinning the equally rapid fire singing of Hawkins in the verses.
This is potentially the future of rock music along with the likes of Alter Bridge and Black Stone Cherry (albeit different genres). Nonetheless, the show was enthusiastically received by everyone in the audience: there was the obligatory moshpit (not my thing) and crowd surfing as well as the audience singing along to the anthemic banger that ‘I’ll Be OK’ is despite the gentler opening verses before the crescendo and breakdown and searing solo by Mark Vollelunga. How to follow that? ‘Spirits’ is a completely different style but it is a cracking track, again well driven by Oliver and Anderson in the rhythm section.
The variety of songwriting envelopes many of the life experiences we all have, from mental health issues (and the fundraising they did with profits from ‘Jenny’) to bereavement and aging (‘Fade In/Fade Out’, which is one of those songs you have to be either end of the age spectrum to appreciate the emotional power of it).
The early end to the night (10.00) did nothing for the band’s energy, in fact Hawkins said outright, they don’t do encores, just leave everything on the stage, and so they did with ‘This Is The Time’ when both Hawkins and Oliver gave some bass toms a serious beating in the middle and at stage right. It was a breathless ending to the show; even if the band weren’t short of breath I was. A stellar performance by a band that should be around a very long time.
