Gig Review
Photo Of No Machine © Copyright TriggerNo Machine
Oxford, Jericho Tavern
12th October 2007
 

Tonight I drove to Oxford to check out No Machine's first ever show in the UK at The Jericho Tavern, a venue I had never been to before but have heard a lot about such as the venue was where Radiohead made their debut in 1987 and is also the venue where Supergrass got signed after an explosive gig there. The Jericho Tavern was quite an easy venue to find once you got on Walton Street, mainly due to the brown front the pub venue has, we parked on the side of the road and made our way to the venue.

Downstairs at the Jericho Tavern is a nice pub room that is all candle lit with many musical posters covering the walls, outside is a massive beer garden that looks really nice candle lit at night time but I would imagine to look pretty tacky in the day time due to the fact that no two chairs or tables are the same. To get to the music hall where gigs are played you have to go upstairs to a separate room, once in the gig room it hits you that the Jericho Tavern is a bit of a dive, the room is really small and the stage is smaller than your average pubs toilet, the walls are black and battered and odd chairs litter the back of the venue but on the plus side, the venue has done a tribute to the legendary DJ John Peel in the form of a stunning red and white painting up on the wall just above the door you come in and next to the painting of John Peel is paintings of Radiohead and Supergrass which is the venues claim to fame in the music business.

Photo Of No Machine © Copyright TriggerWe got to the venue just as No Machine were finishing off their sound check, a few moments later the doors opened but unfortunately there wasn’t a queue of people waiting to get in and by the time No Machine took to the stage there was about 30 people maximum in the venue due to bad promotion from the promoter of the venue. The six piece looked pretty squashed on the stage especially with all their equipment. Daniel was positioned to the left of the stage right against the wall with his two keyboards extremely close by and loving every minute of the set smiling at every opportunity, Emil Rivers was next to Daniel and positioned to the front of the stage playing his keyboard with passion and energy building up a sweat throughout the set, Al Rivers was positioned in the centre of the stage on vocals but was really limited to movement due to the smallness of the stage and the fact Emil's keyboard and Pedro's bass was so close by. Pedro and guitarist Fred were both situated on the far right hand side of the stage, drummer Joca was positioned to the back of the stage and quite out of sight due to the small stage.

Photo Of No Machine © Copyright TriggerNo Machine opened up with the title track from their forthcoming debut album 'A Terrible Thing' the song has a long introduction and is such a strong sounding song that sounds exactly the same live as it does on record which is pretty impressive, vocalist Al Rivers sings every word with passion and has some great movement on stage and you can clearly tell he wants to go a bit more mental but is restricted due to being packed on stage like sardines.

The band play a couple of slow songs such as the stunning non album track 'Oceans' which is really stripped down and laid back but really easy to get into at the same time. The other slow song was the bands forthcoming debut single 'Tell Me' which sounded even better live than it does on record and it was good to see Fred's long guitar solo whilst watching vocalist Al Rivers taking a break from vocals and swaying side to side rattling his microphone. Songs such as the interestingly named 'Toast The Toaster' proved to be a hit and so did 'The Races' where Daniel and Emil Rivers really get to show off their skills with various different synth and keyboard sounds.

Photo Of No Machine © Copyright TriggerThe band played a 13 song set and the most surprising thing is that the majority of the songs No Machine played tonight are not featured on their debut album 'A Terrible Thing' which is living proof that this band are really hard working and have more songs up their sleeves than a magician has magic tricks.

Overall No Machine are a really talented band and really energetic live and sound just as good live as they do on record, the band also put maximum effort in like they were playing to a full house despite the venue being quite empty which shows No Machine care very much about their live show whether there is ten people watching or a thousand. The only downside to the show was that I felt sorry for the band being so packed together on stage and not having room to move and go a bit mental which you could see they were crying out for.

4.5/5

Review By Trigger
 No Machine

Al Rivers (Vocals)
Emil Rivers (Piano)
Fred (Guitar)
Joca (Drums)
Pedro (Bass)
Daniel (Organ, Synths)
 Band Related Links
No Machine Myspace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?