Ray-Ban
Envision Tour: Theme Park
West
Country Boxing Club, Bristol, Saturday, May 22
Ray Ban had set up a competition enabling a lucky few to
attend private gigs after they had submitted their ‘Vision’ onto the
competition website. Whilst my friend bothered and entered the competition,
after noticing Theme Park had
mentioned on Facebook that they had a few spare tickets, I was lucky enough to
nab some through a gushy email to the band themselves. After the train journey
in, we reached Bristol and hopped off. Knowing exactly where we were heading,
we followed the gatherings heading into the city for the Dot To Dot Festival. A
rowdy bunch of woman clutched Fosters' cans whilst posing in their wellies, unfortunately
it seemed that they weren't aware that the festival itself, isn't your typical
muddy field festival, instead they would spend the day crammed into small music
venues and pubs across the city, whilst being sandwiched between sweaty men,
regretting their choice of rubber booties.
Anyhow, we reached St Thomas Street, and after storming
around the street and the area, we found no sign of a 'West Country Boxing
Club'. We got desperate, and after approaching four people, we soon discovered
that actually there happened to be two St Thomas Street's in Bristol. Typical. Feeling
like a complete plank for being so confident with my day-plan, we caught a taxi
and trekked over to the opposite side of the city. It soon became apparent that
this cheap day out with a free gig, was actually turning out to be rather
stressful and unfortunately pretty damn expensive, for a penniless me. Feeling
as though someone had thrown me into a sea of relief, we FINALLY arrived and trundled
inside the post-church, present boxing club.
After stepping inside, I noticed it wasn’t at all what I
expected, but then again, I don’t really know what I expected. Mooching into a
room filled with Ray-Ban stickers and plastered with posters, I almost forget
this was a boxing gym, until I turned to face a stripy punching bag (is that
what you call them?). We were then greeted by two over-friendly brand
promoters, who flaunted a bright red Smeg fridge. Inside laid a variety of the
company’s produce; glasses differing in colour, shape and size. The female of
the two persuaded us to select a pair each, to wear for photos. My friend
gladly accepted, picking out a tortoiseshell pair complete with round lenses,
whilst I stood aside, muttering about my oddly shaped head. The lady chose to
assist and pulled out a humongous set of black glasses. I plonked them onto my
face and within a second transformed into a bug. Unfortunately they were way,
way too big for my face and this resulted in my appearance becoming rather fly
like, instead of the super-fly sunglasses model that I would of preferred. We
posed in front of the brands backdrop whilst the (worldly) male promoter took
horrific insect photos of us on my shitberry.
After all the fuss, it turned out that we had to
participate in over an hour of standing around until, even the support band
performed. We ventured into the second room which was styled so that the boxing
ring was pushed to the wall and had adapted to a stage format, whilst a dj
booth sat at the back, along with strobe lights, which let’s be honest was a
little uncalled for giving that it had only just hit 3 o’clock in the afternoon
(I sound like such an old grouch). Having the room
fashioned this way kind of killed my dream of having the ring in the centre,
whilst the fans squished around the edge, a different member of the band facing
in a different direction. However, it turned out that there can’t have been
more than 25 people there in total (including staff, shocking), so it looked
like there wouldn't be any crazy dance-action happening.
The
Portillo Moment were the support band; made up of three men (who
covered drums and guitars) and a female vocalist/bassist. I'm not 100% sure
where they were from, or who they are, but I'd take a guess and say that they
were fairly local to the Bristol area and were aged late teens/early twenties. I'd
probably class their sound as folk-grunge or pop-rock, but who knows? The girl
had a very distinct voice and the songs were a mix of quietly-relaxing tunes and
heavier, dreamy beats. After a pleasurable set, they left the stage and joined
the humble audience and wait for the 'headliners.'
Theme
Park waddled into the ring and placed themselves into position
to embark on the show. They bounced through tracks from the album, whirling the
bodies below the boxing ring into a cheerful, tropical adventure. Highlights
came from the newish single Tonight,
old track Milk and Wax. Their chilled, summer-groove
lightened up the cold, damp day, that was fo'sure. The band finished their
delightful set and escaped out. We finished up the event by spray-painting and
customising some t-shirts, relating to the day's theme of 'Impact Resistant.'
I must admit after being a fan of all the past EP’s, Theme Park’s album was a slight
disappointment. However, after hearing all the tracks live, you have a complete
different perspective; maybe their next album should be a live album? Rough and
unhampered.
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