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Gig Review - Exeter Cavern

three minutes in & already the foundations in this small underground cave are beginning to shake. that's as long as it takes for "why?", the first song in dub war's Set, to kick in & flatten exeter. this is the first date of the welsh quartet's current tour, & they're certainly not fucking around. the audience is wired, the band are fired, & they presumably had to widen the cavern's door frames to accommodate the collossal sound system.

of course, you never know quite where you stand with dub war. one minute your senses are being tickled by a wave of smooth, funky reggae, with spliff & bed seeming like an attractive proposition; the next instant a wall of pounding punk outrage grabs you by the gonads & tosses you around like a rag doll.

but the sheer magnitude of dub war's aural mind-fuck is enough to shatter the doubts of anyone foolish enough to question their abilities. Dreadlocked frontman benji looks like a cross between robinson crusoe & a black max cavalera as he belts out "bassball bat", "gorrit", & "million dollar love".

the punters are bobbing up & down like horny amphibians as the tracks pour out thick & fast, interlocking industrial-strength chords with a silky, sleaky bass-oriented groove that you just know is going to viciously turn on you within the next ten seconds.

dub war put on one of the most energetic live shows outside of prodigy territory, satisfying an absolutely gagging Cavern in the process. if you didn't enjoy it tonight, you're either deaf or dead.

MOST ROCKING MOMENT:

Dub War's classic 'Enemy Maker'

LEAST ROCKING MOMENT:

Some weirdo skulking around the crowd in a werewolf costume desperately seeking someone to scare.

VERDICT:

You want a brain-rattling orgy of noise? you gorrit...