On a horrifically wet and cold October evening, in a smaller than they deserve venue in the Midlands three hard rock bands were getting ready to please a group of people in a dark room. The Treatment, with their distinctive vocals and high energy, Buffalo Summer with their own unigue brand of classic rock and, first opening the evening, Australian rockers Massive on their first tour of the UK. A veritable feast of live music to warm even the hardest to please rock band through.

Taking to the stage full of enthusiasm and enerft were Massive. Now, these guys are Australia through and through. A living stereotype if you will. Hard rocking & hard drinking with music that really kicks you in the gut. You can feel that they have been inspired by, and subsequently modelled themselves on, some of the biggest and best Australian bands. You get the occasional Angus Young legwork, there’s the Joel O’Keefe rasping vocals and there’s the overriding hard rock sound. But they don't sound like another AC/DC tribute act, all of this stuff comes together to create a rocking, bouncing, party style atmosphere. At The Slade Rooms in Wolverhampton Massive played out an unrelenting half an hour set full of energy and intensity. It’s just a shame that those in attendance weren’t lapping it up. In 'Dancefloor' you have the perfect song for a dreary Wednesday night in Wolverhampton – a chance to jump around and warm up. Unfortunately, the crowd did not feel like jumping or dancing. Whilst the reception the band got after each song was big, and they certainly went down very well, it just wasn’t in the way that the band may well have wanted. Singer Brad Marr spent a fair portion of the set with can in one hand and guitar in the other. In a different room he would have had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. Overall, I feel that these guys have a big future ahead of them and, whilst they were very good and this tour was perfect for them, this venue did not do the band justice. 

After having a post-set chat with frontman Andrew, read what we talked about here, it really hit me how nice a group of guys Buffalo Summer are. Which makes the question ‘How are these guys not signed?’ even more puzzling. Seriously, I mean you’ve got bands like King 810 getting huge PR campaigns despite providing very little in the way of anything new to a genre that died over 10 years ago. But then there’s bands like Buffalo Summer who put out one of the best debut albums in years and, despite playing Download Festival & British Summer Time, still don’t have a record deal. Doesn’t seem right? But, back on topic, this Buffalo Summer performance is the best that I have lucky enough to see. Whether it’s the tambourine tapping Andrew Hunt on vocals or the energetic Darren King on bass there’s always something visual going on alongside the music. Not that there needs to be. Songs from their debut album like She’s All Natural, A Horse Called Freedom & Down To The River don’t need these additional elements, they’re brilliant songs when played live that kept the happy, dancing atmosphere that Massive developed going strong. Hard rocking, but with so much of the trademark Buffalo Summer funky, soulfulness that you can close your eyes and get lost in the rhythm. They played various new songs for the crowd and which went down an absolute treat from where I was standing. It’s a difficult thing to pull off, playing new songs from an unreleased record that many people won’t have ever heard before. But the crowd lapped them up, as well they should because it sounds like the album, hopefully due for release in early 2015, is going to be another cracker from these Welsh lads. 

Headliners on this tour and one of the brightest British bands currently touring were The Treatment. I feel quite privileged to have watched The Treatment grow from their opening EP, through This Might Hurt up to today with their second album Running With The Dogs and headline tours. But the latest development is not their best (in my opinion). They’ve gone from being proper rock kids. Scruffy and raw, with a real unique sound. To having the feeling of a forced and inorganic looking band. Their current image sees vocalist Matt Jones doing his best M Shadows impression, guitarist Tagore Grey seemingly auditioning for a dodgy Grease remake and the rest of the band pouting like schoolgirls. Luckily, this isn’t a ‘who looks the most like…whatever’ competition. It isn’t a competition at all, it’s rock n’ roll and The Treatment know how to write rock n' roll songs. Their debut album, This Might Hurt, was a sensational piece of work and the tracks off it that made their way into the set in Wolverhampton were executed to perfection. The newer songs, whilst being just as well performed, still come across as cheesy live as they do on their second album, Running With The Dogs. Emergency being the prime example of this with it's Queen style harmonies in the chorus. If you've seen/heard The Treatment before and liked their music, they're still the same band you saw before, just hidden away under a 'look' that has been developed over years. Luckily, no one at this show cared what they looked like, they came to be rocked and rocked they were. It's is great to see another British band doing so well and these guys are showing real promise of becoming something special. So long as they keep remembering that the music is the most important thing.