Veto
Live @ The Proud Gallery, London, UK 03/20/2009
Tonight, Danish superstars Veto had the somewhat unenviable task of playing to a room full of weekend ravers, hipsters and stragglers. Billed as a London showcase, these sort of events tend to have promoters who focus more on the shintz & glamour of the venue and the units of lager sold than on any potential sonic wizardry offered by the musical acts on the bill. Arguably, the current global economic meltdown has put an already greater strain on the somewhat uneasy relationship between art and commerce.
However, tonight somehow Veto manage to rise above the drunken revelry of the party people to put on a set which showcases why they recently won the prestigious P3 award in their native Denmark. Egged on by a hardcore army of super-fans down the front, the band display a sound which is able to capture the industrial electro of The Faint, with added post-recession gloom.
In a live setting, the tracks from their recent album "Crushing digits" are a given a lot more room to breathe. A particular highlight from the set is "Breathe", which is given space to morph into a multiheaded schizophrenic beast of a tune, prototyping every aspect of the band's live show. The song features a two minute near silence, in which the band's small army of native fans continued their relentless death march and cheering.
A slight criticism is the aesthetic of the stage setup. Whilst drummer Mads Hasager demonstrates a palpable punch with his incessant groove, vocalist Troels Abrahmsen is mostly obscured by a huge flight case. Even though this acts as a makeshift stand for his laptop, it firmly bridged the gap between performer and audience. The performance of the fans at the front of the stage put on a theatrical spectacle, the stage setup broke down the existence of a fourth-wall.
- Nick Levine
