Iron Rhino, Fighting Fifth Husky and Fat Wreck live 02/12/16

With Trudi Goldsmith & Mark Foster

Last Friday 2nd December the Masons in Llanelli was alive with a mix of punk, rock, funk and blues!

Read on for my take on the night with Fat Wreck and Fighting Husky and Foster’s views on Iron Rhino!

Fresh from an afternoon and early evening of Christmas celebrations with the day job, I made my way to the Masons just in time to catch Fat Wreck’s 2nd gig at The Masons since their November debut. Playing as a three piece with Lewis Larkman on guitar and vocals; Julian Hunt on bass and Damian Harries on drums the band kicked off the night with a set of well played punk rock covers including tracks from No Use for A Name; Greenday; Against Me ; Rancid and Frank Turner. Brilliant band! You can check out Fat Wreck ‘s Facebook page for news on future gigs and they will be back at the Masons between Christmas and the New Year.

Next up was Foster’s four piece rock, funk and blues band Fighting Fifth Husky. No strangers to the venue, the band played just the week before. I can’t comment on the previous week but tonight Fighting Fifth Husky played a solid set of original tunes including super catchy tracks like ‘Rock It and Break It’ and ‘ A Kind of Life’ (I love that one!) Other standout tracks from the set included a bouncing ‘Crazy Nights and Headlocks’ with its great melody and fab vocals. Great set. You can check out Fighting Fifth Husky on Facebook for links to their music online.

Headlining the night was the mighty Iron Rhino. Over to Foster for his take on the band….

I could say that Iron Rhino were making their Llanelli debut on Friday but most of the band have played around town in various guises over the years, performing as Hate Gauge, Trunk Shot and One Room Down. Although the band traveled all the way from Milford Haven for the gig, lead singer, Al Muirez, has a long association with the music scene in town and we had a great long chat about old gigs in the Stepney Hotel, the bands who used to call in Stan’s Half Moon and he even remembered my old Turk Rock website, Llanelli Underground, from back when only a handful of people in Llanelli had the internet. The boys play heavy rock but not so heavy as to be just playing for metal fans. Al told me before the gig that his pet hate in music are bands who have great musicians playing a good tune only to have a vocalist growling over the top of it in their best cookie monster impersonation. The singer from my band, who usually listens to indie even said how much he enjoyed the band. It does help when Al is such a likeable person who can really work the crowd, in fact, all the band put a great show on with bass player, Dave, giving his bass to a member of the audience for the final song.

Iron Rhino live at The Masons Arms Llanelli 02/12/16