Crooks vocalist Josh Rogers
Playing an empty room is the necessary evil of the road to success as a band. Playing an empty room after just coming off tour with one of the country’s biggest alternative acts, where you had previously playing packed-out academies must feel extremely disheartening. Such is the burden for headliners Crooks tonight, a young post-hardcore band from Cheltenham, who, despite over 40 people RSVPing for the gig, are only playing to an audience of 13 people.
First support Halfsight do their best with the small, unresponsive crowd; blazing through their half hour hardcore set with ferocity. Vocalist, Jordan Widdowson, hurls himself from one side of the stage to the other, grasping the air and punching the low ceiling, shouting melodiously into the tiny audience. Their familiar brand of melodic hardcore goes stale very quickly however, with every other song sounding the same and each track bringing the same temporary thrills.
Autumn Ghost then have a go at warming up the lukewarm-at-best crowd with a ferocious, chugging assault of Nu-metal inspired metalcore. This certainly ups the tempo, with remarkably executed off beat rhythms and progressive riffing that all but serve to kick the audience in the face – in a good way. Vocalist, Bretty, showcases a vocal range that could shatter glass, melt hearts but, also, scare the weak and feeble, all neatly packaged into 25 minutes. Despite this, the tiny audience still stands away from the stage with their arms crossed, seemingly too cool to react in any other way, and in turn, the potential for a punch-up goes unexplored.
And so, Crooks take their place on the stage, looking unimpressed – and honestly, really rather irritated. A swell of piano plays on a backing track and only vocalist, Josh Rogers, looks out over the audience with the rest of them turning their backs. As he sings, he leans on his microphone stand as if for support as he delivers a beautiful soaring falsetto laced with sentiment. For about two minutes, the audience is led to believe that this will be the entire set, until a very quick four count by the drummer and a torrent of distorted power chords takes over. Rogers then seems to abandon his crutch and becomes a little ball of unbridled energy, impulsively throwing himself between his fellow musicians, thriving and shaking like a man filled to the brim with too many conflicting emotions. When he returns to the microphone he seems to yelp through his verses, trying to be heard over the walls of post-hardcore riffing around him. For such a heavy-sounding band, it is brave that they employ only emotive clean vocals throughout – a risk that comes across extremely well on record with proper mastering but does not carry at all live and in fact gets to be rather two dimensional. That is with the exception of final song, A Few Peaceful Days, which incites the movement from the audience the show had been crying out for. Hard-hitting, and yet affecting, pulling on the heartstrings of all involved, but just as soon as the set heats up, it’s over and the audience are left to ponder what could have been. 6/10
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