Our friend and part of the Punk Rock Mag Team, Michael Dickson from the show “Caution aussie on board” on Deal Radio (dealradio.co.uk) had the honor to interview Steve Rawles (Belvedere frontman)…. and now, here is the review of the show!!

Punk rock is alive and well as ever as Lockjaw records finest and legends of the scene Belvedere took to the stage with Much The Same on a mid-week slot to showcase what the top dogs in the biz have to offer and inevitably burning a hole in the pit and tearing the roof off in the process.

The night started out with a bang as the five piece from Alberta, Canada Wolfrik graced the stage with their take no prisoners style of heavy rock and metal combo. It saw the punters flowing through the doors as lead vocalist Nathaniel Court belted out tracks from the groups latest record ‘Clones’.

Next up was home grown heroes Darko always giving it everything on stage and never leaving anything in the tank after their short sharp and smashing set. The group from Guilford had the locals chanting for more as they ploughed through their back catalogue of tunes quicker then a fat guy at a all you can eat buffet.

Coming back after a long hiatus Much The Same was as great as they have ever been, and it was as though they hadn’t missed playing a show in all the time they had been away. The lad’s sound was tight, and it was everything you would come to expect from the classy outfit whilst playing tunes from the respected records ‘Everything is fine’ and ‘Survive’. A personal highlight was ‘The Greatest Betrayal’ that was fuggin epic.

And last but not least was the main course of the evening Belvedere. It would have been a tough ask to try and top Much The Same after their set but if you would have asked anyone that was at the New Cross that night, they all would have said the same thing…. It was delicious. Steve Rawles with his intoxicating energy and trademark smile wasted no time in whipping the place into a frenzy. And with the addition of Ryan Mumby on bass and Dan Wollach on guitar saw Belvedere recently take a slightly new direction with the latest record ‘Hindsight is the sixth sense’. Its been well received as the boys blasted ‘Good grief retreat’ and Elephant march’ much to the delight of the hardcore fans at the front waiting to get a kick in the face from the many crowd surfing punks having a whale of a time behind them.

As the night went on the and the floor got stickier Belvedere glided through the rest of the set list playing some more tracks from an earlier release ‘Fast forward eats the tape’ and ‘Revenge of the fifth’. They finished the night on the pleasing ‘She sells sand sandwiches which saw the masses flocking to the merch stand afterwards desperately trying to grab one last piece… perhaps a memory to take with them forever.