Back in my late teens which seems like
many years ago now, The Ataris were one of my
favourite band’s alongside the likes of
Alkaline Trio, Green Day, Blink 182, New Found
Glory and pretty much any other band that had
a pop-punk sound, through the years I managed
to check the Ataris out live many times at their
own headline shows and also at festivals and each
and every time I watched them I walked away with
pretty much no voice as I sung my lungs and enjoyed
every second of their sets.
After the success of ‘So Long, Astoria’,
The Ataris went through a dark patch where Kris
Roe sacked pretty much the whole band and over
time changed the bands format from a four piece
band to a seven piece band and they finally released
their next album ‘Welcome The Night’
the album was delayed by nearly two years and
was slated by the majority of music journalists,
I personally enjoyed their new hard hitting indie
rock sound and enjoyed the album.
Since the release of ‘Welcome The Night’
The Ataris have gone through many more line up
changes with Kris Roe being the only original
member in the band and many musicians coming and
going through the years, The Ataris are currently
working on their sixth studio album ‘The
Graveyard Of The Atlantic’ which seems to
be running into delays the length of Guns N Roses
‘Chinese Democracy’ did, but luckily
for The Ataris fans the reasons for the delay
is that they have been solidly on the road touring
for the past two years trying to reach every country
and as many of their fans as possible.
When The Ataris announce the UK leg of their tour
I was excited and jumped at the chance to go to
the Bristol show and was happily counting down
the days before the show like I was an over excited
teen again, however I have now realised that looking
forward to something in an excited way can lead
to disappointment just like tonight’s show
did.
Now I have been to thousands of gigs over the
years but it has been a long time since I left
a venue feeling as disappointed as I did tonight,
The Ataris took to the stage dead on 10pm and
managed to play 12 songs in just under an hour
and the set consisted mainly of songs from their
‘Blue Skies, Broken, Hearts... Next 12 Exits’
album and also ‘So Long Astoria’ with
a few songs from ‘End Is Forever’
and a few covers thrown in for good measures.
The Ataris opened their set with ‘In This
Diary’ which happens to be a big fan favourite
from the ‘So Long Astoria’ album,
as the band started playing I noticed things were
slightly different from when I have seen The Ataris
in the past as Kris Roe’s vocals have changed
over the years and he now has quite a gruff sounding
voice which actually sounded quite pleasing on
the ears.
As the set progressed things started to go downhill
with Kris Roe forever retuning his guitar and
playing with his monitor throughout songs as he
was not happy with the noise levels, luckily the
rest of the band managed to keep it together and
jammed solidly through these moments but it was
the constant jamming and changing of arrangements
throughout songs which put a negative spin on
the show as instead of playing the classic songs
how we all know and love them The Ataris were
mixing them up and adding in big jamming sessions
that just weren’t needed.
Kris Roe spent a lot of time talking to the crowd
between songs asking them to check out their merch,
check out their website and download a couple
of new tracks from their forthcoming studio album
and also to explain that the band have only learnt
enough songs to cover the set for the tour so
many fan favourites such as ‘Teenage Riot’
and ‘The Boys Of Summer’ were left
out of the set.
During their set The Ataris played classic songs
such as ‘So Long Astoria’, ‘I.O.U.
One Galaxy’, ‘1,15,96’, ‘My
Hotel Years’ and set closer ‘San Dimas
High School Football Rules’, which couldn’t
of come sooner for me.
Overall tonight The Ataris sounded like a new
band on the block who were playing one of their
first ever gigs and run into technical difficulties
and I now feel that The Ataris need to take some
time away from the live circuit and head into
rehearsals and solidly rehearse their back catalogue
as tonight’s show was quite frankly an embarrassment
to The Ataris name, and seeing how stale the band
were tonight I can see further line up changes
right around the corner which is only going to
cause more problems for the band as a whole new
line up will have to gel and learn the songs.
The Ataris may not be the same band that so many
people grew up loving and despite tonights poor
performance I will always remain a fan and blast
their albums out to hear their songs exactly how
they were written instead of the shambles I witnessed
tonight.
2/5
Review By Trigger
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