Twelve Foot NinjaLovers of heavy music are getting to sample from a headbanger's buffet at the Corner tonight. The floor is peppered with people already as local prog rockers Toehider proceed to hammer out their virtuoso-metal piss taking. Singer Michael Mills opts to look like some sort of Friar Tuck from the future tonight, with a plastic cape tied up with rope and bald pate strapped with blinking GoPro camera. There's no real need for any of this malarkey as the band are tight and rip it up on all fronts. At one point Mills lets everyone in on the fact that his voice isn't at all half shabby, climbing octaves as he spreads his cape wide, looking ready to rocket off into the heavens. By set's end there are more than a few dazed and converted Toehider fans in attendance.
Unfortunately suffering from a vocal-heavy mix, Brisbane's Caligula's Horse power on through, churning out tracks such as the rousing Colossus taken from their Moments From Ephemeral City LP. Not your typical band to feature extended lead breaks, Caligula's Horse are an interesting amalgam of styles, with dynamics that afford band guru Sam Vallen the opportunity to give his fingers a good stretching over the neck of his spiffy Ibanez guitar. Theirs is very ambitious music to pull off live and these guys deserve a respectful tip of the hat for being able to do just that.
The room is pumping with punters now and Twelve Foot Ninja reward the audience with a fuck-yeah explosion in the form of Kingdom. All decked out in black, the band are tight as hell, owning the stage and loving it. Second track Vanguard is everything live that it is on CD, hard rock with dub blending effortlessly until the bottom end kicks everyone in the room in their bottom end. Vocalist Kin Etik finger bangs the air with confidence, fully engaging with the audience and putting on a veritable frontman clinic. Clarion from the Smoke Bomb EP has the pit bouncing before an acoustic version of Liberation simmers the crowd down. Mother Sky's eerie guitar intro drops the hammer and once again the crowd falls in line, spazzing out.
The band's encore includes Dark Passenger and War, two ball-tearers performed with precision that leaves the dripping audience confirmed Twelve Foot Ninja fans who are smugly satisfied with their Saturday night.
