For many the East Pak Antidote tour is a dream line up: The Ghost Of A Thousand (TGOAT), Four Year Strong (FYS), Anti-Flag and Alexisonfire. It seems like a tour put together by the music gods, themselves. Four bands that are having a real impact on today’s music scene. No doubt the live show will always match up to expectations, tonight they graced the infamous Nottingham Rock City stage.
TGOAT kicked things off at a ruthless pace, with a circle pit opening from the very first strum of the guitar. As TGOAT are arguably the heaviest band on tonight, it’s not much of a surprise. Frontman, Tom Lacey endeared himself to the crowd, apologising for the early doors opening, so now ‘we’re missing The Simpsons’. Lacey himself looks like a rather gentle and passive person when you see him but on stage is a different story. His screams were loud, powerful and raw, and to make sure you were listening he jumps into the circle pit himself.
‘Knees, Toes, Teeth’ was the best song of the set, a tuneful beast of a song, mixing Lacey’s screaming and softer vocals, and carrying an ‘anthem’ feel about it. TGOAT are the only British band on this tour and before the last song Lacey calls “Let’s show these Americans how it’s done,” sparking some crowd surfing from Lacey. By the end of the set the audience adored him and the rest of the band.
Next up were Four Year Strong. Expected to be the softest band of the night with some pop infused rock but they turned up the guitars and drums and showed they’re not pushovers. The circle pits carried on from TGOAT and even grew in size. Throughout their set they wheeled out big tracks like ‘Heroes get remembered, legends never die’ and ‘Abandon ship or abandon all hope’.
Anti-Flag announce their arrival on stage by telling everyone to raise the ‘peace’ sign high in the air. Musically, Anti-Flag are a great rock band and that come across, however love it or hate it they are a political band. On the agenda tonight is the economy, with Justin Sane (guitar/vocals) saying how the bail-outs should go to the poor. The message is good but a bit hypocritical as people paid £15+ to get in, then another £15+ for any merch. When they played music everyone loved it, especially a cover of The Clash’s ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ and the circle pit still didn’t rest!
Rock City must have been close to bursting when Alexisonfire took to the stage. They jumped straight into ‘Heading for the Sun’ from their latest album ‘Old Crows/Young Cardinals’ and quickly followed it up with fan favourites in ‘Boiled Frogs’ and ‘We are the Sound’. The sound was amazing with George Pettit’s and Dallas Green’s vocals mixing perfectly. By then the circle pit was vicious and took up most of the floor. Definitely a circle pit worth of such an intense performance.
One particular highlight of the set was when Alexis were joined on stage by Chris #2 from Anti-Flag, when the song finished Chris and Wade (AOF guitarist) kissed and hugged. Wade went on to express how that had made his dream had come true.
Overall, this was truly amazing performances from all four bands. The audience didn’t disappoint either, with energy flowing between them and the bands all night. It’s fair to say that a few people had some bruises after it.
Words, Pictures and Video by: Damon Fowler Comfort in Sound
The Ghost Of A Thousand are looking forward to the release of their second studio album coming out on June 1st. A lot has changed since the release of their debut album back in 2007 and we caught up with Tom Lacey (Vocals) from TGOAT:
So are you all prepared for what looks like will be a very busy summer for ghost? Always, we love being busy and to be honest we've not toured much in the last year so we're itching to get back on it.
What are you looking forward to most in the upcoming months? Just playing all our new songs to new people, getting out into Europe has been one of our main goals since we started and we've now got the chance to finally achieve it. We're delighted to be playing so many big Euro festivals.
How come you have made the launch party gigs in London and Brighton free entry? We're just nice like that...we want them to feel like parties rather than ego worshipping gigs so we just felt that making them free and giving away lots of free clobber would make people loosen up and come and say Hi more readily.
You’re playing the lockup stage at Reading and Leeds this year, even though you played in 2007 do you still get nervous about it? Especially with stories of bands being bottled off, etc? If I get a bottle in the face it’s going straight back at the person who threw it, but fuck it man, if people want to come and cause trouble we're more than capable of handling ourselves ha ha! We're moving targets anyway so they'll have a tough time.
What can be expected from the upcoming album? More riffs, more melody, more heart, and more good times. It’s a bleak fucking record in places but the end goal is to salvage some good from all the shitty things you have to deal with in this life, so hopefully that is portrayed well by the album.
It’s said to be ‘sadder’ than ‘This is where the fight begins’, in what way is it? We had a really rough year personally the year we wrote it and alot of that seeped through into the music and lyrics...I try not to bring too much personal stuff into what we do but it was inevitable that it would become more apparent as we wrote the record so we just went with it.
Where did the name ‘New Hopes, New Demonstrations’ come from? It’s about proving to other people that you can make a good thing of your life, hence the demonstrations part, the new hope is just trying to be optimistic about very negative things, it’s almost ironic because the last song on the record is pretty blunt and leaves you on a bit a of a downer, but we kept it just because that’s the kind of people we are, we have to try and put a positive spin on these things, it’s in our nature.
Do you have a favourite track from the album? ‘Knees, toes, teeth’ is my favourite at the moment just because it sounds like AC/DC if they listened to Converge as kids!
What was it like recording in Stockholm with Pelle Gunnerfeldt? Pelle was an inspiration, a funny little dude, but we loved him and his beautiful studio. We had 5 weeks out there with no pool tables, no lounge, nothing, we'd just work all day and watch films at night until one by one we passed out. We work better without mates dropping in every second, so it was perfect.
What’s the weirdest thing to happen to you in the band so far? It blows my mind that kids love our band and can get so passionate about us, that in itself is insane and humbling at the same time!
Listen to and keep up with The Ghost Of A Thousand on their MySpace.
The Ghost Of A Thousand (TGOAT) will be playing two free gigs to support the release of their new album ‘New Hopes, New Demonstrations’. The Brighton based band’s album is to be released on 1st June and follows their debut album from 2007 ‘This Is Where The Fight Begins’.
The free gigs are take place on 30th May at Audio in Brighton (16+) and 1st June at Bloomsbury Bowling in London (18+). “Absolutely everyone is welcome, unless you have swine flu” said Steve Sitowski, frontman for Outcry Collective who will be supporting TGOAT at the London gig. Not only are the London gig free but there will be giveaways from Epitaph, Jagermeister, Vans, Criminal Damage and Rockstar to help make this a night to remember.
If you can't make these gigs then you can see TGOAT supporting Gallows on their current UK tour, or supporting Alexisonfire at their Borderline gig.
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‘Knees, Toes, Teeth’ was the best song of the set, a tuneful beast of a song, mixing Lacey’s screaming and softer vocals, and carrying an ‘anthem’ feel about it. TGOAT are the only British band on this tour and before the last song Lacey calls “Let’s show these Americans how it’s done,” sparking some crowd surfing from Lacey. By the end of the set the audience adored him and the rest of the band.
Next up were Four Year Strong. Expected to be the softest band of the night with some pop infused rock but they turned up the guitars and drums and showed they’re not pushovers. The circle pits carried on from TGOAT and even grew in size. Throughout their set they wheeled out big tracks like ‘Heroes get remembered, legends never die’ and ‘Abandon ship or abandon all hope’.
telling everyone to raise the ‘peace’ sign high in the air. Musically, Anti-Flag are a great rock band and that come across, however love it or hate it they are a political band. On the agenda tonight is the economy, with Justin Sane (guitar/vocals) saying how the bail-outs should go to the poor. The message is good but a bit hypocritical as people paid £15+ to get in, then another £15+ for any merch. When they played music everyone loved it, especially a cover of The Clash’s ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ and the circle pit still didn’t rest!
Overall, this was truly amazing performances from all four bands. The audience didn’t disappoint either, with energy flowing between them and the bands all night. It’s fair to say that a few people had some bruises after it.
