I saw the TRAAMS play at the Social. The Whig Whams and the Venus Lyx supported the band. Unfortunately I was too late to catch the first group, narrowly missing the set by one song. From what I saw, I’d definitely want to get a proper look next time and see what they have to offer.

Whig Whams were second on the bill, and rightly so. This was the third time I’ve seen this band, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn there were new songs in the mix. I thoroughly enjoyed most of them, and hope to hear them soon on record. The Whig Whams’ live act is pretty entertaining.

Around the 20-minute mark, Joel’s pedal board went caput and he spent at least five minutes trying to figure out what was wrong with it. This tested the patience of the people in the audience, but not mine. These hiccups affect the nervous system of bands when they’re onstage, but the Whig Whams went with the flow and got on with it, affects or no affects. Once these technical issues were dealt with, the show continued, and the Whig Whams went down a storm.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for TRAAMS, who left a lot to be desired. It was the common drivel that has attained an element of cool recently, but the performance didn’t live up to the hype. From what I can remember, I began to feel disengaged from the performance around 30 seconds into the first song. From that point on I sat at the back. The show was easier to digest from where I was situated, but I still didn’t enjoy it, and wanted to go upstairs.

Is this what a good band is supposed to do to you? Make you want to piss off upstairs and drink where you can get a little peace and quiet? Maybe I’m missing something. People will accuse me of being biased, because “it’s not my kind of music anyway”, but that would be a cheap statement to make.

I’ll tell you why I didn’t think it amounted to much. They didn’t have the songs. There was no melody in the material, just noise. Noise without any energy, or the enchanting persuasion to mesmerise you into thinking they were worth their salt.

I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry, this performance was pretty underwhelming.

Tom Wing