Old gig reviews: Fear Factory w/ Spineshank & Kilgore @ Rock City, December 1998 Nottingham

[interjections from today (11/1/19) in these square brackets]

Fear Factory w/ Spineshank & Kilgore @ Rock City, December 1998 Nottingham

Spineshank. Rhymes with wank. That's the most remarkable thing about them. A sub-Deftones rip off band, with less originality than Oasis [full disclosure - I liked Oasis then and still do now]! That said, they have a few tolerable songs, but so do most pub bands! You couldn't hear the fucking guitars! Avoid. [Spineshank really were absolute bollocks]

Kilgore's singer is not a happy man. In fact, he looks like he's about to kill the first 3 rows! And that sums up Kilgore-: aggression over talent. Not as bad as Spineshank, sounding more like Vision Of Disorder than Korn, but still sounding quite bad.

I came to see Fear Factory, as did FSU's artist, Ade [FSU was the name of the fanzine this was written for]. He hadn't been to a gig for years, and was so far disappointed (especially since a pint of Stella Artois cost £2.60! [ah the days when a pint was less than #4]). That all changed as Fear Factory took to the stage. The most pit exploded to 'Shock', and 3 songs later we were knackered! Fukkin brutal! We took to a safer vantage point, were we could clearly see the stage, and FF's 'ample' guitarist Dino. He took note of Ade's 'Venom' T-Shirt (Spiderman character, not dodgy metal band) and showed his approval. I hadn't heard much of the new album, but was impressed with the material they aired. The set was 50/50 old and new material, and it all sounded great, especially the near-epic 'Ressurection'.

One of the best live bands I’ve seen, they more than made up for the shit that preceeded them.