MUSIC IN MANCHESTER
	Manchester Bands Section)
	Bonebox & Desolation Angels MANCHESTER BIG HANDS Festival Of Briton  10/10/00

"Reared on hard-core pornography, strong cider and penny sweets, I give you Desolation Angels”

An introduction like is hard to follow

Yet tonight is another example of whereby the Angels display their fortitude and resilience against all the knocks they've recently taken. Last year they entered Young Gifted and Green only to loose Julie to illness prior to the event. They still managed to get through to the final and came a creditable third.

Tonight they have lost their drummer to chickenpox.  Variations on how they will re-construct their performance is based around providing an acoustic set.  Anything that can be used to create a beat or rhythm is added to the melting pot.

For a band that interchange instruments and positions on almost every song, the situation on the normally cramped “Stage", is further exacerbated by the fact that the equipment for Bonebox is out. Steph., Julie, Mandy & Mike all take turns on vocals, each one adding something different to the relevant number. But the problems with the pa that will plague the night keep surfacing, whether it be errant feedback from a rogue mic or the constant struggle to stop banging a guitar against someone else's piece of kit.

For the final number, the mic on the cello appeared to go totally dead, but at least Julie said it sounded quite nice!

The 7 players in Bonebox (click for piccies) tonight not so much as take the stage as carefully tread around the myriad mic stands, amp and leads.  A low rumble emanates from the speakers stack, building slowly and yet where are the vocals?  Jay signals to the sound man to up the vocals. No response.

He attempts to get another few lines out before signaling again.  He into the audience to check for himself if anything is coming out.  Nothing.  Stop the rock.  He leaves the stage and walks down to the desk, asking the audience of they think the vocals should be fixed.

The solution is to use someone else's mic. Start again. Success of a kind. When Jay moves towards the crowd, an integral part of the show, NNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGG!, the feedback kicks in. Thats the best that it will get, so right. lets get to work.

Jay knows the limits and the show WILL go on, problems can be resolved another time. For now, lets play. A dirty, sleazy, driving rhythm fills the air.  Jay's rough, dark, brooding intonations completing the sound perfectly.  

Then the trumpet kicks in. Perhaps they've watched too many Sergio Leone westerns, listened to too many Ennio Morricone soundtracks, but this is contageously good.

Numbers do not so much begin and end but seamlessly move from one to into another, supported by a visual track that is perhaps too obscured to support the audio.

The paces slackens but only to enable it to rise again, and it does, each time higher.

The sweat begins to appear on the walls.  Jay braces himself against the ceiling, climbs on an amp or just menacingly moves into the crowd like a prowling animal, his black Calvin's halfway up his back, his belt halfway down .

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