Panic Room/Chris Johnson, The Peel, 27th March 2010
The first time I went to see Panic Room at The House of Progression almost exactly two years ago, I never got to see them play. A power blackout plunged the entire neigbourhood into darkness twenty minutes into support band Jump’s set, forcing the curtailment of the gig. I even got a message on Twitter from one of the band remind us to bring some coins for the meter!
Since then, I’ve seen them quite a few times, the most recent being at The Duchess in York at the beginning of the month. Tonight, as at that show, Chris Johnson provided the support. Solo acoustic acts can be a bit hit-and-miss; without the power of a full band the set must stand or fall on the strength of the songs alone. Fortunately Chris Johnson has the songs, quite a few of which were already familiar. Stripped-down versions of songs from Parade’s excellent “The Fabric” made up a big chunk of the set, complete with that really nasty additional verse of “The Dogs” about hoping for the subject’s death and following the coffin. And I thought Chris was a nice person! He also treated us to a great version of “Gaze”, one of the songs Chris wrote for the second disk of Mostly Autumn’s “Heart Full of Sky”.
Panic Room have come a long way since the very first time I saw them, a week before that ill-fated power cut gig. They’re now amazingly tight, and with a high proportion of rockers in the set the energy level stays high. If you only know Anne-Marie Helder for playing a supporting role in Mostly Autumn it’s a revelation seeing her front her own band. She has a tremendous stage presence and her powerful and impassioned lead vocals easily the equal of any other female vocalist in the prog scene. The rest of the band put in superb performances too, for me it was the rhythm section of Alan Vaughan and Gavin Griffiths who really stood out on this night. The band now draw almost the entire set from their second album “Satellite”, including several songs from the EP “Little Satellite” that came with the limited edition release of the album, and it says a lot for the strength of the new material the whole of it comes over live so well. The ominous “Dark Star” with Jon Edwards’ Hammer House of Horror keyboards was one of many high spots, as was the rocked up version of Anne-Marie’s powerful solo song “Blood Red Sky”, and set closer “Apocalypstick”, one of only a couple of songs from their first album to remain in the set.
They’re on tour again in the Autumn, and are well worth seeing.
