If you are from the north east and you have not yet run into local noise rock four-piece TV Death, you are going to the wrong places. They supported Danish rock’n’roll outfit ICEAGE, and together, the two bands lifted our Monday blues like they were made to do so. TV Death opened the evening with a powerful and dark, distorted set, with their strongest songs being those off 2021 debut EP ‘Isolation’!
At an already nicely packed The Cluny TV Death bring their loud and feral sound with passion and energy, and by the end of their set have turned around their rather mellow audience. Throughout their thirty minutes of stage time, the band got progressively better and slowly persuaded their brand new fans. It wasn’t just the well-crafted tracks that did it, it was the energising stage presence of a band clearly well-rehearsed that made for a grand opening of the night.
Now for the band that most of us came to see; ICEAGE, a band that have been working on their craft for well over a decade. There is so much to say about this incredibly versatile musical group who’ve truly packed us all in, twirled us around, and left us slightly dizzy yet floating on air after a brilliantly otherworldly set. Their wild and thrilling rock’n’roll draws well outside the lines, is heavy in riffs and punched a whole through the roof the Monday they played Newcastle. The band played their songs tightly, their frontman performed them like his life depended on it. Charismatic in his own way, he was the only person I found myself looking at throughout the night, despite the cardigan that looked like he had nicked it from his grandmother.
ICEAGE have their eclectic rock soundscapes and interesting compositions down to a T and performed them like it. They are a well-weathered band that knows their place is on a stage, and their audience knows it too. Even though their audience was quite tame, not too surprising for a Monday evening, the band showed no signs of slowing down and near the end of the evening succeeded in getting a timid mosh pit going! Even though they are known for their chaotic rock sounds, ICEAGE know how and when to slow down and left space for the softer sounds of ‘Shelter Song’ and ‘The Holding Hand’. Their almost apocalyptic sound awed their audience and showed that they have only gotten better since I last saw them live in 2018!
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