Pressure 4-5, Dredg, Oddman & Wurkt

This was a show for the kids. The kids, who like to mix it up, get down and listen to some hard music. The show started at 6 PM, so those who like the Top 40 Saturday dance nights could still get their groove on. Normally, 6 o'clock on Saturday, most are still trying to figure out what happened last night and what they would do that night...obviously, Wurkt had a small crowd.
Wurkt took to the stage like champs. They came out claiming San Francisco (after investigation, I found some of them to be from Winters and Red Bluff.) Also during this investigation I was told that after signing to a label, certain things happened to the guys in an anatomical way. This needs no explanation...they really like being on a major label, and Chico "kept it real" for them, with 40 people in the crowd rather than 200.
They have an album coming out on Warner Brothers in March. Fronted by Josh Robinson, their hardcore, metal-ish songs came across hard, fast and tight. Their best being "Ego," the most versatile and, maybe, radio friendly number. They covered an '80s rap tune, LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out." I thought of Alien Ant Farm.
During their set the audience started yelling for Oddman, and once Wurkt played their last song, the four people in the front turned into about 30, in anticipation of local heroes, Oddman. The effect that Chico's Oddman has on the crowd is intense. Some of them knew all the words and some were later sighted asking for autographs. There was a contingency of girls in the balcony looking lustfully at certain members. Even though Oddman isn't everyone's favorite type of music, their hard core, nu metal, whatever you want to call it sound can be easily appreciated. The strong, esoteric instrumentation, Scott Wallace's throaty, nefarious voice and their energy and pride for the music they are playing is worth checking out.
All through their set Oddman showed much improvement in many ways, one being simply with their live set. They kept the same intensity throughout, accelerating and decreasing speed, sounding like a polished band worthy of headlining rather than opening the show. A beautiful part of their set was all the feisty grrls moshing just as hard as the boys.
The high-speed potency of Oddman was transferred to the mellow vigor of Dredg. Seeing Dredg play is more like a multi-media event than a concert: the stage littered with paintings, pots and pans, a tree, a guitar played with a screwdriver. With Gavin on vocals and trumpet and Drew on bass and sample pedals (played with his toe), that is enough to create a sound and feel completely different than the first two bands. More akin to Radiohead than Limp Bizkit, their full, round music wrapped up with Gavin's searing vocals that is so perfectly layered, if you closed your eyes, you would be in your room with headphones on listening to a perfectly mastered CD.
After the first song, Gavin told the no-longer-moshing crowd, "It scared you to see someone doing something different. It scares you very much." This Los Gatos band experiments enough to be interesting and not too much that it's inaudible. Their songs, with Gavin's Jeff Buckley-esque voice and impassioned lyrics, were enough to make me want to see them again. Or end the show with them, leaving it on a perfect note.
Next up was headliner Pressure 4-5, originally from Redding and a current Dreamworks band. They have played OzzFest and with Perfect Circle. Their sound, Blink without the silly lyrics, was definitely the crowd pleaser. And if the industry continues the way it's going, you'll be seeing more of them. The music sounded good, they didn't screw up, the vocals sounded great, but it was nothing different than half the songs you hear on the radio these days. Not to say that's bad, people obviously love it, but it was nothing new. Their song, "Enough" was great, full of variation in the vocals and music — it wasn't just balls out rock 'n' roll — it had lots of deviation in sound, which was a nice change.
– Laney Erokan

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