New Years' five wave goodbye to 2004

New Years' Eve is never a time for a quiet drink, and this year at The Mill was no exception - five bands of extortionately mixed genre joined forces to complete a memorable 2004 for Preston's live music scene.

The musical journey covered all angles - setting off from devil-worshipping, metal-machine 'Asylum', through the intricate yet warped blues-emo sound of Burn Machina and arriving, almost an hour late, at punk-funk mindbenders 'The KBC', with Capulet and The Clones making themselves heard along the way.

Crunching guitars

Hit the lights, and let the darkness descend as Asylum took to the stage first to shower their loyal army of fans with their ear-bashing assortment of crunching guitars and over-the-top theatricals.

The dark-lords made way for an altogether lighter prospect in the shape of Capulet, the locality's work-horses, playing more gigs in the past 12 months than you would care to sling a drumstick at. Their sound is very refined, and all songs appear carefully constructed. The bass is used almost as a lead instrument, but there are a noticeable lack of lyrics to decorate their eerie ambience.

Burn Machina arrive onstage looking slick and ready for action, and took the occasion to throw two new songs into their deep-dark mixing bowl of a setlist. Performance highlights included Little Prison and Hollow, and an important debut for the bands' brand new guitarist.

Turbo-charged

Unpredictable punk-pop quartet The Clones may still have been nursing Christmas hangovers but failed to ignite the blue touch paper during their brief set, until literally exploding during Wasting The Night, turbo-charged, dancing about and hell-bent on a three minute musical revolution.

The Clones took the brave step of dropping crowd favourites such as Sweet, These Girls and Saw A Girl, opting for newly introduced numbers including the self-explanatory Bayonet Blues and paranoid love song Josephine.

The KBC are greeted by a fast-swelling crowd of New Years Eve revellers. Kicking off with a swaggering, funk instrumental the band then sauntered into their own rendition of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart.

'Turned off'

Best In The Business is getting close to being exactly what it says on the metaphorical tin, with the lyrics gradually evolving and developing show by show. Always a band to push the boundaries, The KBC's stage show finished amidst confusion with a minor stage invasion and the band being 'turned off' after playing for almost twice their allotted time..

Written by Dan Jeoffroy

Photography: Dan Jeoffroy