05 September 2014 (gig)
07 September 2014
The Tropic was pretty well packed out for the visit of Virgil and the Accelerators – their first show at the venue and from the crowd reaction it will not be their last.
They are a three piece outfit – Virgil on guitar, Gabriel on drums and Jack on bass - and you might have thought that that format was pretty well exhausted but these kids show that it is possible to do something new with the form while keeping the classics close to hand.
Virgil is a superb guitarist and a pretty good vocalist. He seems equally happy to be riffing like a loon and soloing his nuts off or settling in to a long jam full of variations in pace and tempo but he couldn’t do it without a dynamite engine behind him and brother Gabriel and friend Jack are exactly that. Gabriel hammering out a massive backbeat while Jack plays fluid and tight. Virgil decides to kick the tempo up a notch and the other two supply the power without missing a hairs breadth of the beat. Chatting to them before the gig it was clear that they are a band and not just Virgil and a couple of hangers on; talking about playing constantly and practicing, jamming and writing together you can’t help but feel that they work as one.
They opened with a track from the new album (produced by Chris Tsangarides) ‘Take Me Higher’ and it was clear that they are in a more rock orientated groove than the days of their first album. Gabriel’s machine gun drumming and Jack’s solid, right there, bass perfectly underpinning Virgil’s explosive guitar.
On into the dark Blues/rock of ‘Backstabber’ and looking around at the crowd there were heads aplenty bobbing to the riff and then on to another new one ‘Give It Up’.
My impression was of a band whose mutual talents are developing and building and they seem utterly confident of their own place and talents, not in any arrogant way but rather as though they had been playing long enough and building their audience long enough that they can play a number like ‘88’ from the ‘Radium’ album without it sounding like anyone else but VATA.
When the band stretch out and jam around repetitive riffing and less rigid playing from Virgil they actually achieve a rhythm and level of interest that very few other bands around today can manage and ‘Through the Night’ from the new album was extended into a brilliant hypnotic groove that captured the crowd and left them gobsmacked at the end.
Virgil and the Accelerators are young, confident and impossibly talented. They prove that music can look to the past but not be dictated to by it and the end result is something wonderful to hear and see and if they are in your area it is worth making a special effort to catch them.
