7/9/2014 London SS, Riot In Paradise & Levyathan @ The Dublin Castle

Most gigs I've been to recently seems to be in Camden, and here's another one - at The Dublin Castle again for this one. Missing the first band (as usual) I arrived in time to see Riot In Paradise. This is a band who always seem to go on early on a bill and I've missed them at least twice because of this, so it's good to finally see them for the first time.

They were odd to say the least - a bit dancey, a bit rocky, and a bit pop. A guitarist who looks like he should be playing rock 'n' roll but plays some sort of alt-rock instead. The bass player seemed to be playing through a laptop with various effects instead of a bass amp, and seemed to experience a few technical problems a a result. The singer had an interesting stage presence, but the band as a whole didn't grab me.

Next band is the infamous London SS. The lineup of this band remains fluid - there is a new bass player in place of Andi M. The band's livewire singer Jimi seems to have gone (again?) too.

Instead of getting a new singer the vocals have now been taken over by guitarist and only original member Brady. As far as I'm aware this is the first time he has sung with the band, but it seems to work surprisingly well - although it seems a different band without Jimi bounding around all over the place - he's a hard act to follow! Brady seems fairly confident singing, although his vocals are hard to hear as his guitar is REALLY LOUD!

I don't know if there any plans to replace Jimi, but they seem to do OK as a four piece band tonight. The eagle eyed regular reader might recognize the band's second guitarist Taj - seen playing guitar with his old band Paradise Alley at the Purple Turtle a couple of weeks ago.

Last band is Levyathan. I've not heard of this lot before but they sound pretty good. Their music sounds like heavy stoner rock mixed with Led Zeppelin.

I would have got more pictures of this band if some bloke didn't insist on standing right in front of the stage videoing their entire set from point blank range. Things were running pretty late and the tube stops early on Sunday nights so I don't hang about until the end - downing my last pint of Westons I head off home instead of making my usual mistake of missing the last tube...