27/7/2006 JOANovARC return to the Purple Turtle

Subject	JOANovARC return to the Purple Turtle
PostedDate	7/27/2006
	The first 'band' I saw after my arrival was Scarlet Blonde - in fact there were only two of them: a Goth looking girl on guitar/vocals and a bloke on bass - the rest was on tape or DAT or something. They could obviously play OK, but this seemed to be a case of the wrong act playing the wrong venue on the wrong night. The girl had a wireless system for her guitar, which seemed a bit pointless as she didn't move around much anyway - especially as it went wrong on the first song, leaving the hapless duo to ask if anyone in the room had a spare guitar lead! Being caught out like this seemed pretty dumb - they brought so much equipment with them to clutter up the stage, but still didn't have a spare lead? I mean, it's just common sense to have a backup in case a wireless system fails - basic schoolboy error stuff. If you've got as far as playing Camden venues you should know better by now.  They had one of two other technical problems and for the first few songs it just wasn't 'happening' for them at all. Things did improve a bit later on, but by then it was too late. You might be able to get away with this sort of performance on the Goth club circuit, but up against other live bands on the Camden scene this just didn't cut it at all. Next up was the Grand Rose Band. I'd managed to miss them at Planet Of Women gigs at the Barfly a couple of times but had heard very good reports about this not terribly well named band. The reports were quite justified as the band were excellent! They played like a true band rather than a bunch of competant musicians all on stage at the same time. They played American flavoured rock not a million miles from the likes of Kings Of Leon, and they played it very well. JOANovARC were on good form as usual, but this was only an average gig for them - which is still better than most bands can manage most of the time. They looked like they managed to get more fans down than any of the other bands, although the venue wasn't very full. There was some crazy random dancing by a few people to the earlier bands, but it was definitely JOANovARC who got them fired up the most.