Gallows at Tap 'n' Tin

I have no idea what goes on in mainstream music these days, no idea at all. But in the sort of magazines I read, Gallows is a big-name English band. Those of you who play Guitar Hero III will find their song "In the Belly of a Shark" tucked away in the Bonus tracks.

They play energetic hardcore/punk, though you'll often see them lumped in with certain emo types and even with metal. I've given up on trying to decipher musical genres anyway: anyone who plays a real fucking instrument is okay with me; I can't stand fucking synthesized pop bollocks full of samples and inanities.

I bought their album pretty much on the back of seeing a gig that was televised on Rockworld TV over here, and it's a great record.

So, when Gallows announced that they were playing a warm-up gig on 10 May in a 260-capacity venue just 20 minutes' drive from my house, I didn't have to hesitate to get tickets.

We got to the venue -- Tap 'n' Tin, in Chatham -- just after 9pm, too late for the first of the support acts. This was due to not knowing where the venue was and not wanting to park too far away from it. Several aborted attempts at both parking and locating the venue led to delays, but it was ultimately the best decision. I don't think anyone relishes the thought of walking Chatham after dark on a Saturday night...

I'm old school, so ideally I like to buy a shirt when I go to a gig. Better still if it's dated, but since the current growing series of gigs Gallows are doing is not really a tour per se, there doesn't appear to be any tour-specific merchandise. No worries. At least I got a shirt (our lateness and the small size of the venue meant there was no queue at the stand). Three of the band members were even hanging out at the merch stand, and guitarist Laurent (or "Lags") sold me mine.

Support band Lakes were okay in places, but to be honest I don't think I'd buy anything by them. It just didn't quite gel for me overall. Maybe their sound wasn't well set up (certainly almost no lyrics were audible), but it was just a bit uninteresting to me.

I don't know what time Gallows finally hit the stage. About 10:15pm maybe. They opened with "In the Belly of a Shark" (the Guitar Hero III track) and did an awesome job of it. After that I sort of lost track, but all the fan favourites were there -- "Abandon Ship", "Rolling with the Punches", "Will Someone Shoot That Fucking Snake", et al -- just as you'd expect, along with at least three new tracks getting their debut airing, the best of which for me was "Graves".

The gig ended with "Orchestra of Wolves", vocalist Frank Carter making his exit in crowd-surfing style (see pic below) as the audience chanted the final refrain: "The hardest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return".

The gig was proper awesome, and even Red, who had not exactly looked forward to it since she's not mad on Gallows' music, gladly admitted that they put on an excellent show. Big love to her for trying to take some pix, but the lighting was so small-venue bad that it was all but impossible to get anything decent from our vantage point, stood on chairs at the side, hoping we were far enough from the crowd-surfers and circle pit (which we were)!

Here's the lads in action in their video for "Abandon Ship".



And here's some pix from us: