While we have a slight up-and-down relationship with indie music here at Overtone, local boys Shadows of a Silhouette have been making massive waves lately, playing huge gigs up and down the country. Plus, a few of them are good friends of ours and they lean a lot into their rock and grunge influences too, so we just had to pop down to one of their two SOLD OUT Derby shows. Add that to the fact that The Bless has only just started to dip their toes into live music again, and it had all the makings of an epic evening. This is what went down!
The show opened on a couple of acoustic acts, including the wonderful Mollie Ralph, who we arrived just in time to see. The vocals were incredible and they simply seemed like they were having a really good time up on stage. The venue was already pretty packed out which was nice to see; she had a great crowd! Sadly, our interview with the headliner caused me to miss parts of this set, so hopefully I can see Mollie again soon!
Next up were local lads, The Roster. They were awesome, and packed out the small space in front of the stage. And it was well deserved too, as they put on a great show. The band too have a slight grungy edge to them, but also wouldn’t sound out of place in the NWOCR movement at times. I can get over just how amazing his vocals were, and it fit with the instrumentation perfectly. They cranked out a fantastic set filled with amazing songs, too. This is the second time I’ve seen the band and neither time did they disappoint! I’d recommend them to anyone who is a rock or indie fan!
Up next we had PASTE.. The heaviest band on the lineup, I loved them. We even had some screams in here, which sounded great and surprisingly fit with the music well. The music itself had much more of a doom metal feel and pace to it too, which was fucking awesome. Yet it still also had the hints of indie and even punk to it, being a really interesting blend of styles. It really had no right fitting on this bill as well as it did! It helped that the band played their asses off from start to finish, ripping through an awesome set. They certainly have a new fan in me, and I’m gonna have to see them live again soon!
We finally reached the headliners of the night then, the wonderful Shadows of a Silhouette. It’s honestly hard to find much more to say about this band that hasn’t already been said by so many other fans and writers. They are very clearly on the up and up, and there is no ceiling in sight for the guys. Their original music is incredible, playing crowd favourites like ‘Closing for Good’ and latest single ‘Abuse Me’. Plus, they even threw in a couple of covers for good measure, the highlight definitely being their incredible rendition of Nirvana’s ‘Heart Shaped Box’. And, on top of them sounding fantastic, they also totally looked the part. They played their asses off, opened the stage and has the crowd in the palm of their hand from start to the very finish. They are clearly set for huge things and much bigger stages than this, and with their big momentum currently and rumours of an album in the works, they’ll be there sooner rather than later!
And there we have it folks, an absolutely awesome night of rock music in a pretty great venue! I cannot recommend any of the bands on the bill enough, both live and on track. And it’s so great to see the Derby music scene kinda booming right now, especially with sold out events like this featuring local bands.as I’ve said already in this review, all of the artists have huge futures ahead of themselves, and I feel lucky we got to head down to this before they exploded into the mainstream!