Gig Review: Poison Skies @ Paddington, Auckland 5/11/14

On a clear Friday night an impressive and good looking crowd gathered for the Video Release Party for Poison Skies’ hot new single Victim of Reality. The venue was Parnell’s the Paddington and what a cool venue it is with a large temporary stage set up in the main room and great vantage points throughout the bar. When the guys hit the stage they created a full and energetic sound, with sublime bass and drums and no less than three guitarists that knew their parts and didn’t try to overpower each other. Lead vocalist Nick Wilkinson was in fine form, with a smooth yet strong voice, he propelled the band with ease and precision throughout the gig. The wall of guitar sound was supplied brilliantly by Nick, Sam and Paul on guitars with Jaimee on bass, all driven relentlessly with tremendous drumming from Carl - I couldn’t see two bass drums so how he achieved that double bass drum sound had me baffled! When they all rocked in unison and the strobe lights got going it threatened to bring out the epileptic in you, staying still was not an option. The very friendly crowd saw fit to show their appreciation by throwing their underwear (or more like someone’s washing) at the boys, who appreciated the extra challenge of dodging flying jocks, which they executed quite proficiently.

It was a very entertaining night with the main event being the screening of the new video for their single Victim of Reality. Well I think the guys felt like victims of reality, or should that be victims of irony as lead guitarist Paul managed to lose the ability to produce sound from his guitar and with no replacement at the ready, the band were scratching their head, Paul is a bit of a prankster, maybe he’s joking? Well after a few moments of dead air they gleefully declared we can all watch the new video while Paul recruits a guitar from one of the support acts, sounds good right, ah no, now the sound on the video failed to materialise, so we all just laughed at the irony and grabbed another drink, after a few moments the sound was found accompanied with a great cheer, and the soundtrack for a great night was back.

The video is very slick, there is great live action footage of the band, interspersed with cool shots of the Silo’s and other areas around Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter, with a young lady that is clearly a victim of a reality that she is not happy about. The best bit is the exploding light coming out of Carl’s drums, (I resisted the temptation to say Carl’s bum) check it out for yourself here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyYTkH7h4cA

Opening the night were Brutally Frank, their name matched their attitude, they were aggressive and uncompromising, delivering tough hard rock, very powerful and moody. With a rare stand-alone singer Jeremy Frank who made use of his freedom to strut around and place himself outside the stage occasionally as with one song performed in front of the stage on a crate. A powerful set of full on rock which left you a little breathless and intimidated, but in a good way! Next to warm us up was the young and vibrant Thin White Lines, who entertained us with dynamic progressive rock, the boys were quite chatty amongst themselves which added a bit of novelty, even though we couldn’t always understand what they were saying, but they looked like they were having fun and it was infectious, when they rocked it was impressive and had your head bopping in appreciation.

In summary all the bands and the Paddington are all well worth a look for a great night out, I hope you get the chance to make it to see these three bands live soon.