Gig Review : Kerrang Tour 2008 @ Leeds Uni Refectory 04/02/08, Coheed & Cambria*****, Madin Lake***, Fightstar****, Circa Survive* It's a while since I've been to this venue, and it has been nicely refurbished. The Uni are obviously clawing back the money spent on the conversion by charging £2.70 for a can of bitter, bloody shocking price. Does this count as profiteering from your own students ? This is an audience you can easily feel old amongst, Chez, Mr Moosehead and myself look as if we've come along to make sure our kids don't get into any trouble. I saw Circa Survive as support to Coheed & Cambria a couple of years ago in Manchester and I thought they were pretty poor then. Two years on and nothing has changed, CS's sound is muddled and confused, too much jangly / noisy guitar work without any real definition or chord structure. As soon as their set has finished (to massive apathy from the crowd) I can't remember how many songs they played or what any of them sounded like. Wooo! It's Charlie from Busted, hail Charlie, he had it all, money, huge fame, a constant string of chart singles, and he gave it all up to come over to the dark side and form a proper rock band, well done that man. I like Fightstar, they play good songs with nice hooks and a decent chorus or two. The sound is a little muddled at points and this does reduce 'Floods' with it ephemera, Muse-like tones to a bit of a post hardcore grind but otherwise it is a good set. Madina Lake, hmmm, the thing is, they're a very average band with very average songs, but they work really hard. Twin one (Nathan, or is it Matthew ?) works the audience, thanking them, complementing them, he jumps around and looks the part. When he does a short speech though part of which is "we're not a band that cares about fashion or haircuts" I'm left confused, this is a band that was formed off the back of a tv reality show and whose main selling point is a pair of blonde, bouffant haired twins, your haircuts are your fame lads. Twin two (Matthew, or is it Nathan) jumps and twirls in time with the bassist and the band look to be having a great time. It's obvious from the exodus after ML's set ends that a sizeable part of the audience have come to see Madina Lake's unchallenging pop rock. ML are not a band band at all, I think they could progress well in the future, but they are punching above their weight with their debut album, their songs as yet are just alright rather than fantastic, but there is promise. They have a warm and fun stage prescence and with some stronger material could become quite decent. All time winner of the big hair stakes though is Claudio from Coheed, even without my specs I can see his giant globe of frizz approaching. I can't really do an unbiased review of C&C, up with Muse they are my favourite contemporary band, if I had to be bitingly honest I would say that tonight's sound quality isn't as good as when I saw them in Manchester, but that is something that has affected all the bands tonight to some degree. Coheed rip through a selection of their prog metal catalogue 'The Running Free' , 'Feathers' , 'The Suffering' , and they tear through a solid version of Iron Maiden's 'The Trooper' which divides the crowd into those who know their music history and those who are under 20. Cocheed are not the most moshable of bands, but the font of the crowd is a pushing, heaving, sweating mass (or at least that describes myself rather well) and a couple of circles open up during the choppier moments. Claudio talks a bit of puff about Leeds having bad karma for his girlfriend but apart from that he maintains a Matt Bellamy like distance from the audience and just gets on with the job in hand. He doesn't need to do anything extra because Coheed's material is so strong and as far as I can see, the crowd are lapping it up. In terms of songwriting and musical ability, C&C are head and shoulders above all the other acts on tonight's bill, the deliver a technically good set and whilst I would have preferred less support bands and thus a longer set from the headliners, they deliver a commanding show in their alloted time.