Give It A Name Festival - Saturday April 28th, Earls Court, London

Line Up The Zico Chain
Kids in Glass Houses
Madina Lake
Kevin Devine
Senses Fail
Zebrahead
Enter Shikari
Saosin
Motion City Soundtrack
Cute Is What We Aim For
New Found Glory
All American Rejects
Brand New


There were tremors in the ground in Kent early Saturday morning, and I think I found the cause once I arrived at Earls Court and saw the hordes of people awaiting entrance to the Give It A Name festival. In its third year and now spread over three days and three locations it is expect to be a day for seeing old favourites and possibly finding some new bands that you can love as well. With a line up that ranges from metal acts, like ‘The Zico Chain’, hardcore rave metal favourites ‘Enter Shikari’ and the pop-rock ‘All American Rejects’, the crowd was diverse to say the least. With a board range of acts comes a wide variety of success and …less success when it comes to performances.

‘The Zico Chain’ and ‘Kevin Devine’ being the lesser successful acts of the day, not to say they weren’t good or failed to get the crowd moving and moshing but they seemed to lake a certain connection and vibe that the other acts held. Both were also on the farther end of the scale for what people were wanting to see, ‘The Zico Chain’ being the true metal for the day and ‘Kevin Devine’ can only be described as more easy rock than anything else. All the other bands on show though had the audience eating out of the palms of their hands, with comments like: ‘look at all you sexy bitches’ getting nothing but cheers from the crowd. Not that I’d let just anyone call me a sexy bitch but if the show is good, you can get away with a lot more than usual.

Stand out performances of the day came from ‘Enter Shikari’, ‘Motion City Soundtrack’ and ‘All American Rejects’. ‘Enter Shikari’ was undoubtedly going to be a crowd pleaser and hearing an entire arena clapping along to ‘Sorry your not a winner’ was something to behold, and might explain drummer Rob’s need to stand atop of the speakers (at least a good 8ft high from my POV) either side of his kit and dance/bounce shirtless mid set. ‘All American Rejects’ front man Tyson truly beamed his love for the UK into the hearts of everyone there, playing football into the crowd, showing impressions of the UK versus US versions of moshing and generally having a good time.

The headline act of the day was ‘Brand New’ a band that left me with what can only be described as stunned, but sadly not for the right reasons. I knew they were a pretty emotional and heavy going band and I expected a rather amazing set, and they came on and played none of their better known tracks, that most of crowds were dying to hear and instead proved way they are often classed under the ‘evil’ umbrella genre of ‘emo’. The only way to try and explain what happened in their set is like watching a car crash. You know you shouldn’t look but you do and it’s both horrific but amazing. The actual performance side of the set was stunning, finishing with a en mass attack of the two drum kits on stage with what looked like at least 8 people pounding away including lead singer Jesse Lacey, however introducing songs with ‘This is a song about a six year old girl that died near where I live’ isn’t exactly what you expect to hear after a day of rocking out. They lacked a huge interaction with the crowd but it were still an amazing sight to see someone’s heart practically breaking with intensity as he sung out each word. Don’t take this to mean I don’t like the band; I just hoped for perhaps a more mixed up set of fast and slower paced tracks for new and old fans alike to enjoy.

Overall the day was something I’d recommend to anyone, maybe not as amazing as the 2006 show for this gal, but still worth every penny and more.

Review by Laura Heath


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