Three months and six days since the last live music event I attended before ‘lockdown’ St Peter Port was back to life with many bars and pubs marking the event with a healthy dose of noise.
While there were plenty of options what felt like the first place to fully advertise and get back to business as usual as Guernsey entered its ‘Phase 5’ of leaving lockdown was a The Vault so that’s where I headed to catch Seven Day Riot, a band I’d not yet had the chance to see live.
Debuting a slightly new line up tonight the band comes with quite a pedigree as it’s composed of half of past pop punk stalwarts 2 Minutes 2 Late in bassist Stu Le Poidevin and drummer Scott Angus, along with Brutus Stonefist frontman Tom ‘Shinfo’ Domaille, here on guitar and vocals, and now joined by Dave Wratten on guitar as well.
They didn’t waste any time getting going, launching into a set mixing pop punk covers and their own songs that went together seamlessly including tracks by the likes of Mest, New Found Glory, Mayday Parade, Alkaline Trio, Blink-182 and more.
With both Stu and Shinfo sharing vocals they brought their own slightly different takes on the classic Southern Californian sound adding a bit of extra variety to proceedings while it was Stu’s based that lead the charge musically with Scott providing his usual strong rhythmic foundation.
Shinfo and Dave meanwhile got the guitar side pretty much spot on too — no mean feat for only three practices with this line up over the last couple of weeks since lockdown restrictions allowed bands to gather again in rehearsal rooms.
Overall though both sets they played were simply great fun, and its safe to say Shinfo talking to the audience fits better here than at most Brutus Stonefist shows. This was reflected by the audience who were into it from the off and, particularly as the night went on, got more and more involved.
The real highlights of the set came as it neared its climax with Alkaline Trio’s Private Eye, Blink-182’s Dammit, You Me At Six’s Save It For The Bedroom and a final triumphant take on Fall Out Boy’s Sugar We’re Going Down which had the whole bar singing.
While this gig didn’t have the feel of being a big event, aside from being a return after lockdown, in that it was maybe the better the representation of life returning to normal as it felt like a good fun night out with some great tunes which, after three months away, is the kind of simple pleasure its great to have back.
