Band: William Control
Support: Ashestoangels, AlterRed
Venue: Electrowerkz, London
Date: 05/05/13
There are few label-less artists that command a crowd with the efficiency and charisma of Aiden frontman Wil Francis, a performer with an abundance of energy and dedication to his live shows that rivals and exceeds many more established acts. As a catalyst for the unsigned and under-appreciated side of the UK music industry, he’s become well-known for bringing other such worthy acts along with him – and this time was no different.
Ashestoangels are the first band to successfully pull the crowd from a meandering, unimpressed stupor into a tight, frenzied press, frontman Adam Crilly exploding onstage with an insane array of acrobatics. Belting out an impressive range of crowd-pleasers whilst swinging upside down from a rickety support strut to squeals of approval and steely gazes from security, Crilly’s energy and passion is intoxicating. The rest of the band matches it with technical skill and good old fashioned onstage chemistry, from the beginning to the incredibly tense build-up to their final song and what must surely be a breakout hit, ‘Wintervention’. It’s near on a crime that with the amount of passion and talent on display here that Ashestoangels aren’t huge already.
AlterRed, then, are an almost bizarre change of pace, a slow, sinister doll’s house of a band who steal the stage with living statues and melancholy theatricality. The crowd shift from an energetic punk high to a lethargic goth drawl – it’s good, but an odd and abrupt loss of momentum, a much more subtle affair than Ashestoangels‘ in-your-face goth punk. Regardless, they slither from song to song with pulsating dark synth and effortless showmanship unfortunately somewhat lost on the crowd.
When William Control finally hits the stage, the atmosphere strikes a high and the dissonant crowd rush forward for the first time all evening as he launches into a setlist perhaps intended to be a Greatest Hits of sorts. Pulsing goth beats are carried forward by the extraordinarily charismatic frontman and kept together by the band who knit Wil’s incredible showmanship with precise musical skill. The other two parts of the group don’t quite match up to the frontman’s flair but they still have the crowd eating out of their hands – this is a fanbase who sing along to every single song, verbatim, without a single word dropped. It’s rare to see in such a relatively intimate venue but it leaves the crowd ecstatic and hungry for more after every hit. Make no mistake, William Control is one of the most passionate and consistent performers on his circuit, and his adoration of the British music scene bleeds through with every show.
9/10
Reviewer: Laurence Stark
