The Bays have a formidable reputation as a live band that excel on the stage. Reputably improvised and spontaneous, the four-piece attempt to do something relatively rare in modern music, apart from a few incoherent avant-garde jazz ensembles. Despite being incredibly talented musicians (The Bays a real high-end session muso's) on stage as a unit they were (on this night) sadly disappointing and lacking the excitement and impetus their reputation screams about. A band that improvises 100% on stage is a rare and special Animal and The Bays can be forgiven for having some beats pre-programmed into the Keyboards as the Bassist appeared to be playing very familiar Riffs to himself and the rest of the band who barely even glanced at each other during their improvised set. The first hour drifted by uneventfully sounding like a sub-par Black Dog combined with Autechre's dullest moments. Slowly the band shifted up a gear, the beats became less sporadic and the rhythm picked up some momentum resulting in some middle-aged , disappointing Drum and Bass not even redeemable by the Concorde's brilliant sound system. Overall, very under-whelming.
By Matt Pratt
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