Skarlett Riot + Sister Shotgun + Neverise @ The Castle and Falcon, 1st June, 2017
Opening up tonight’s show for Skarlett Riot at the newly reopened The Castle and Falcon (which by the way is a cracking venue) and is still being worked on but already looks impressive for a new small music venue, were Burton’s 5 piece Neverise fronted by lead singer Jessica Matthews.
Jessica looked great on stage, with beaming personality and beauty. For a first support these guys were great, I’m not familiar with any of the music but think they have great potential. I felt the vocals were a little poor at times tonight, possibly due to sound issues but I’d definitely like to catch these guys again knowing that first supports in shows this size don’t always get sound checks.
Sister Shotgun, another 5 piece fronted female band hailing from Stourbridge were next. Chloe Orwell who was oozing sexiness and style giving us an eyeful and great for a photographer as she was not afraid to get right in your face. The rest of the band has style to match, the music is fairly tight and feels refined, the crowd of course were going wild almost from the outset. Chloe gets the crowd to give their biggest roar for all of the poor victims of the Manchester attack. The sounds are a mixture of melodic and hard rock, the music is enjoyable and while the crowds stick around its clear some have come to see these. These guys are on the rise for sure.
Its all female fronted bands tonight and last up is no different we have Lincolnshire’s Hard Rockers Skarlett Riot. I met Danny and Skarlett last year at Download Festival and had a good ole chat, discovered they were in band and was told to check out their stuff, well, a year later here we are. Unfortunately tonight the Bass Player Martin was unable to make an appearance though Sister Shotguns Bassist Tim Chambers steps in and helps make it happen.
Opening tonight with a light sounding intro Skarlett takes to the stage belting out Divide Us. Immediately I see that Skarlett’s vocals are well kept the lighting looks fun and adds to the atmosphere but it is dark for us photo guys. She manages to captivate the audience and shows off her huge vocal range and its easy to see that while these guys aren’t new to the circuit they are very confident on stage which is always great to see.
Danny, the guitarist is having a ball up on stage showing enormous energy thrusting around with the odd look at the high long vocal parts that Skarlett performs regularly, with a quick look of “well done girl you nailed it”. The energy is high on stage and drummer Luke is also a pleasure to watch putting in huge amounts of energy into making lots of noise and even has the chance to look like he is going to crawl towards me mid playing. We (the crowd) are invited at many times to make some noise and believe me this crowd immediately respond. The highest energy one is Voices which sounds epic and has such deep meaningful lyrics, the crowd participation is effortless.
There were great amounts of hair flailing, including the stand in bassist and the crowd banging their heads away to the heavier numbers . The nights set list was a mix of the newer tracks released on their Latest 2 EPS and the earlier 2015 released We Are The Brave and Sentience. Only Adrenaline made the set list from their album Tear Me Down released 2013, I expected more as there are some real bangers, such as Broken Wings & Party Hard, but of course they can’t play everything in a night.
Skarlett Riot were fun and enjoyable and for me personally I am very glad I met them and had the chance to witness them live now. I expect they will be super huge! So now is your chance to get up close and personal, they really are great guys too. They have recently been picked up and signed by Despotz Records and tonight it is easy to see why.
My Favourite track is probably Feel, Voices or Scream At Me, so Basically the Sentience EP you guys should get it – you will not be disappointed.
Skarlett Riot Set List
Divide Us
Empty Inside
Adrenaline
————
Wake Up
Cascade
Are You Alive
————
Ignite
Feel
What We’ve Become
————
House Of cards
Voices
Scream At Me
The Wounded