69th Year! 
69th Year!
The Whole Story of The Kinema Ballroom Dunfermline
(Includes the Cinemas of Dunfermline & Rosyth)
69th Year! |
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| Gig Reviews Here you'll find some exclusive, short, amateur reviews of gigz at the ballroom. These are purely individual opinions and are designed to offer an honest personal observation, nothing more. If you find them informative, useful, even entertaining then I'm pleased. If you don't, it's no big deal, we simply disagree. Please tell me your view and I may publish that too. If you would care to offer your thoughts on a particular performance, please send your views to me via the 'Feedback' page and I will consider publishing them. Note, I may edit your work before publishing, however I will also subsequently remove any reviews at the author's request. They're in chronological order. Enjoy!
The Bluetones by Ghoulz
The Wynd I couldn’t remember a single tune because I don’t think there were any! They badly need a singer, some songs and some stage presence. As far as I can gather they’ve only been together a year or two so it’s early days but they must learn to ‘sell’ their craft to the punters. About thirty folk politely acknowledged their existence and that’s fair enough as I’ve seen better outfits bottled-off! Lots of work to do but don’t give up yet guys. To be fair the recordings on their myspace site aren’t so bad. Here's their 9-song set list: Favourites
The Draymin After a very swift 10 min stage change, local (Rosyth) boys, The Draymin, set off to liven things up a bit with their 30min slot, and this they did! I’ve seen them only twice before and they hadn’t impressed me then, however tonight was different. They seemed to have a new confidence which came over in the performance and this time I was disappointed when they were done. The floor filled-up rapidly once they began and stayed busy with attentive fans (led by their bouncing contingent at the front) throughout the memorable set. Quite a contrast. I noted that young Fraz’ vocals could be compared with Kirk Brandon (Theatre of Hate / Spear of Destiny / Dead Men Walking). Check out their bebo site to sample several toons for free. Congratulations lads.
The Bluetones The headliners took to the 'Velocity' stage at 21:15 and played more than an hour before returning for two encores. Hounslow’s quartet of class tunesmiths did us proud on Saturday’s live music relaunch. And didn’t Fife do well in supporting the venture at about ¾ full, though frankly it looked like more. A pretty good turnout for January and at a 'new' venue. The Bluetones are truly a smooth, class act. Multi instrumentalists and songsmiths to a man, they have learned their craft over the last decade or so and the experience shows. They even made time to express their appreciation of the venue’s history and that they were honoured to be playing here in Dunfermline! The enduring Britpoper’s set was populated with newer & fairly recent material, studded with gems from their illustrious past such as ‘If’ & of course their UK #2 hit from 1996, ‘Slight Return’ much to the crowd’s delight. The 18-song set was as follows: Autophilia Their varied soundscapes can be difficult to categorise but I hear influences such as Squeeze & Prefab Sprout together with the jangliness of The Byrds along with the vocal qualities of Crowded House and a tonal quality reminiscent of Simon & Garfunkel, yet they often surprise by showing a jagged edge too. Truly an interesting, eclectic mix. One tune even had a latin rhythm. The Bluetones are noted for tight, memorable, brooding tunes and thoughtful lyrics and it sounds to me we’re about to see their second coming as the newer material sounds entirely commercial & wholly contemporary while the older material was hardly dated at all – surely the most important hallmark of the quality song. The sound was good, visibility was great from almost anywhere in the hall, the crowd were appreciative if a little slow to start, but they got there. (Please note for future gigz though: You’ll have to make a great deal more noise than that to nail regular encores people!) As it turns out, this will be the only gig at 'Velocity' under the 'V:Live' brand. As of Saturday 26th January 2008, all future gigz at 'Velocity' will be under the 'Kinema:Live' banner! Incidentally, the band thoroughly enjoyed the evening too, I understand, and are keen to return. I’ll be there.
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