Artist: Free For All
Date: 4th November 2007
Venue: The Grapes, Sheffield
Other Artistes: The Last Round, 5FD
Website: http://MySpace.com/FreeForAllUK

Review Rating: 9.0 / 10
Average User Rating: N/A / 10

Video Clip:  Emo Song [32mb, .3gp]

Even though the shops have been selling Christmas merch since mid-August I still think it’s far too early for pantomime. The show began on Sunday morning when I double-checked with two of my mates that they were still coming down to Sheffield for the ‘Free For All’ gig – they both gave a firm ‘YES’. Then, later in the afternoon, I got messages saying they were too tired to come… Not being one to travel 55miles each way to a gig on my own I quickly roped in one of my brothers and another mate!

After burning my thumb setting off a firework (one of the downsides to having kids) I decided it was time to head off from Bradford to Sheffield.

Arriving at The Grapes we met Chris on the door (who had forgotten we were even coming) and were quickly ushered in to catch the last song from Southport’s’ The Last Round’ – a veritable melee of punk/rock/metal/emo (well, not so much metal) with possibly the fastest drummer from the West Coast of the UK! In true pantomime style there were two more ‘last songs’ to end their set. From what I caught of them I was reasonably impressed but the vocals were possibly their weakest point…

After a short interval, during which I grudgingly found out that there were no ice creams at this pantomime, ‘Free For All’ hit the stage. Having never seen these guys before (other than meeting Chris (guitar/vocals) and Ben (bass) at previous Punk Worship events) I didn’t really know what to expect or what to say to my trusty gig-companions should ‘Free For All’ turn out to be shockingly bad…

Thankfully my fears were compounded when they started their set. My ears were assaulted by bouncy, ska-tinged punk rock – and they were pleased with what they heard. You can tell that Chris loves the ska and the first few songs showed this quite clearly. In true pantomime fashion a lot of time (maybe a bit too much) was spent between the opening songs trying to get everyone dancing – with the threat that Steve (drums) would leave if no one danced enough.

The songs were varied enough that I didn’t get bored of what I was hearing but not so different that it appeared eclectic – ‘FreeFor All’ seem to have settled on their own, fairly unique, style of being ‘ska-tinged punk-rock party-beasts’. A good mixture of medium tempo and fast-paced straight forward ‘rawk’ got nearly everyone’s heads moving and feet-a-tapping – there was even a two-person pit down at the front! Steve kept the tempo incredibly well and the stop/start moments were executed flawlessly. One thing I did notice was the prevalence of slap-bass from Ben, although their MySpace page does state that he loves the Chilli’s far too much – this is, in no way, a bad thing and just adds another bit of uniqueness to the ‘Free For All’ sound.

The general feeling I got at the gig was that people liked what they heard and, unlike in the days of ‘Cephas’, no one appeared offended at the mention of ‘Free For All’ being a Christian band. In fact this even brought about further pantomime moments. Chris boldly stated: “We are incredibly proud to tell you that we are Sheffield’s ONLY Christian punk band” to which a big burly bloke n a NOFX shirt shouted back “Oh no it isn’t!” apparently his band played with some Christians just the other week…!

The final pantomime moment involved having to dance so much that we would make Chris’ glasses fall off. They came off during the song (see video here [32mb, .3gp]) so we must have been doing something right – ‘Free For All’ certainly did it right too! I’m really looking forward to seeing them again and maybe getting some recordings too – for the first time in a while I’m getting excited about the UK Christian Punk scene again!

by MaFt - 2007-11-07

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