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Polluteme / Polluted Ezine / Music Reviews / Night @ The Warehouse
Night @ The Warehouse written by: Jacob Robison A friend and I made our weekly religious voyage to Clarksville, Tennessee to pay a visit to my good friends at The Warehouse Bar and Grill on Thursday, May 10. Kon'shens, Lower Unit and FSN were all on the night's bill. Three really talented bands in one night; what more could you ask for? Hell, I can answer my own question: how about a crowd? Although not nearly as bad as it has been in recent weeks, the crowd still fell way short of being packed. Anywhere from forty to fifty people were in the audience in a place that can hold three hundred (or around there) people. The tons of people who must have had something better to do missed out on a killer show though.  Kon'shens got the ball rolling at around nine forty-five p.m. or so. The four-man, one-woman band from Eddyville, Kentucky - vocalists Monty McLeod and Loren Riley, guitarist Shane "Stash" Smith, bassist Hilary McLeod and drummer John Granstaff - were making their second appearance on The Warehouse stage in as many weeks. Kon'shens' sound can be described as in the same vein as System of A Down with a little bit of Rage thrown in for flavor. The two vocalists, Monty and Loren, work really well together. Both of them have very good singing voices as well as several screams, making it hard to tell who was singing what. They definitely gave the music a voice (or two). Stash, in his second year of playing the guitar, supplied some massive guitar riffs throughout their set. Some of the stuff he was playing seemed amazingly complex for someone who has basically just starting learning to play his instrument. The only bad thing that I can say about his performance is his stage presence; every now and then he would wander around the stage, but for the most part he seemed content to stay in one place and bob up and down. For the style of music that his band plays he should be bouncing around the stage like a maniac. Monty's wife Hilary supplied the bass-lines that cemented their sound and performance. I could almost smell her strings burning on her fretless bass after the set was over. And John drove the whole kit and caboodle from his perch behind his drums. His beats kept the musical energy flowing in the right direction. "Awakenings", the second song they played, was one of their highlights. Unfortunately the crowd pretty much sucked, but at least there was a crowd (no matter the size). Monty gave Polluteme.com one helluva plug during their show too. This is definitely a band to keep your eye on.  Lower Unit, from Nashville, Tennessee, was the second band to take the stage in what I believe was their first show without bass player Evan Darr. Charles Irwin from Lowboy filled in at bass, keeping the band from having to cancel the show. Vocalist Ryan Agee, guitarists Eric Leaver and Kevin Smith, and drummer Dale Leaver took to the stage at around ten forty-five p.m. armed with some new material. Say what you will about the Unit Boyz; the fact will always remain that they know how to put on a good show. Crowd interaction (at one point Ryan got the crowd to tell this chick that she looked good and didn't need to get breast implants), chemistry onstage (they couldn't have been any tighter if they tried) and musical intensity (two microphones were broken during their set, nothing new for Lower Unit) were all there. And the fact that they played some new material for the audience made the show that much better. "Weak Man", about guys who beat their significant other, showed off a new musical direction for the Unit Boys. The rap/rock influences were still there, although Ryan sings a whole lot more than on some of their other material. The music was badass as well; it had damn near everyone who was listening to the music bouncing around. "Weak Man" was definitely a highlight to their set. Another highlight for me personally came when Ryan called me up to the front of the stage and handed me the mic to scream the ending to "Outkasts". That shit was fun. After my screaming debut Ryan gave our website another hellacious plug. But their closer, a remake of Three Six Mafia's "Hit A Mothafucka", took the prize for highlight of the night. Adam Jennings, vocalist for Malfunction Crew, joined the party on second vocals and proceeded to kick some musical ass. Everything from banging his head on Dale's bass drum to trying to hang himself with the mic cord to dropping elbows on Agee...you name it, Jennings did it. Lower Unit's set was badass from top to bottom.  Hometown band FSN - vocalist Alexis Brown, guitarists Teads and JJ Hankins, bassist Frank "Stymes" Huggins and drummer Ben Ross - took the stage as the headliner shortly after midnight. Several people in the local scene are looking to this band as the one to step up and fill the void left when Lowboy packed up and headed out to California; FSN proved that they are ready for the challenge. Beginning with their latest song "Mind Fuck", the crew in FSN set a blistering pace behind Alexis. About thirty minutes before they took the stage she told me that she sprained her neck during their recent Battle of the Bands performance (by the way, FSN took second place behind Pazuzu). By the time she was onstage, however, personal injury meant absolutely nothing as she burst into her usual madwoman persona. Her light blue hair was a blur all through their set. Teads and JJ showed off some impressive chemistry during their set. Their interweaving guitar lines and complimentary accents made a claim for them as being among the best guitar combos in the area. Stymes - at fifteen the youngest musician in the band - flashed some skill on his bass. The understanding of the instrument that he demonstrated during their performance made me wonder about how good he's going to be given a few years. Ben, his injuries from his recent near death experience fully healed, proved once again that he is as good as they come. His laid back, pimp-tight playing style set the tone for their set. The only thing I could have done without was Teads telling everyone how sweaty his balls were (he was trying to get the house to turn off some lights, but still...I didn't need to know about shit like that). Their closing song, "Faded Hate", remains my favorite in their arsenal of musical bombs. FSN (who, by the way, have been playing at The Warehouse pretty regularly over the past year) seems to be up to the challenge of replacing Lowboy at the top of the Clarksville scene. The only thing that sucked about the show was the crowd itself. Although FSN drew a bigger crowd than most have been drawing recently, it still wasn't enough. All three bands - Kon'shens, Lower Unit and FSN put on awesome shows...it's just a shame that damn near nobody heard them. That's something that we're going to have to fix soon, now isn't it? Hopefully the next time that bands as talented as these bands are play at The Warehouse will have a halfway decent crowd to play to. If not, then who knows how much longer The Warehouse will book local bands. |
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