Reviews

Rob Spalding was booked as the support act this evening only one hour before his performance but this didn't affect his perfromance. He sat center stage with his acoustic wearing a white cowboy hat and shirt. His look is completely the lone troupadour and he has a strong raw vocal to match as he sings about love, life and finding oneself. "I'm so tired, arn't you tired of playing dangerous games?" he sang in the first song before moving onto 'Under The Moon' and a personal statement of "Underneath the moon I will try to find a reflection, underneath the moon I will try to find a connection".

The song 'Curl Up In A Corner' was third before he swapped his acoustic for an electric and went into what came across as a very deep song about "traditions of entrapment" as he gave the advice "don't forget to find your way". 'Born For This' was fifth which had a very American al rock/country feel to it and the words "I wasn't born for fighting, I was born for playing." This was followe! d by a relaxed song that built to a climax with the repeated lines of "what i've seen". He finished his set with a great John Martyn cover.

Automatic Gainstay was interesting and something different for Porter. Not a band but one guy in a long black jacket from the states who plays keys and synth woth pre-recorded samples. He was adament to state the fact that he played all the pre-recorded instruments himself and they were not computerised.

The result was a sort of elctro mish-mash of sounds and chilled out melodies. I really liked the guys voice although at times it was difficult to hear the lyrics. The first track had a great electro funk groove to it and was followed by a track that used a lot of sampled vocal harmonies which created an interesting effect. He said he liked the fact that "recorded bands always fade out just right" before going into a song that I think was called 'Boxfolia' with lots of different recorded instruments and effects. I really liked the lyrics to the next short song that were apparently written by a member of the audience. "I don't know where all the good times went, I don't want to!  get up anymore" he sang.

A very chilled out number followed and then a song called 'Umbrella' which began with some rain fall effects and ended with a church bell toll. 'Luck' was next about a fireworks incident he suffered celebrating independence day. It was built upon some great distorted bass samples and scattered drums with some vocal samples of "yeah, yeah, yeah!". At the end of the song he went into what sounded like a midi sax solo on the keyboard which sounded great. An interesting instrumental followed that reminded me of the old midi tunes you hear on the old school Nintendo games! It contained a sample of someone speaking Russian in the middle (which we got extra points for if we could translate it!)

The penultimate song was called 'What You Bought' before he ended with 'Can't' which was a really cool elect pop song. This was his first ever gig in England and he thanked the audience for sticking around to listen to him. Its not easy when you have an act that re! lies a lot on pre-recorded instrumentation to make your performance visually enthralling, especially in a bar setting and I think this contributed to the audience getting smaller. However the guy has a great personality and I really enjoyed his music. Not an act that I would rush to see live but I would definetly buy his music. I shall keep my ears and eyes open.

www.myspace.com/automaticgainstay2

Ed hutchinson