Sense Field, Jerry Built
6 November 2003
The Garage, London


Having only caught the end of the last song of opening act Sunfactor, it`s unfair to comment. Jerry Built from Kingston follow, who have had a few good write-ups in the music press of late. The opening instrumental hints at good things, but once the songs start immediately the likes of Sum 41 and Blink 182 to mind. This just isn`t my cup of tea and we retreat to the bar for the duration.

Jerry Built Set List:
Instrumental / Marriage / A is B / Release / You & Yours / Near You / Receivers / Result?


Sense Field are still missing guitarist Rodney Sellars who is sadly still on hiatus looking after his sick daughter. Last time Sense Field were in London, Sellars had just left and it was apparent that the sound was lacking, however, with sufficient experience of Chris Evenson`s sole guitar and the addition of a session keyboard player the sound is much better rounded tonight.

In fact, said keyboard player had a cameo of his own when during technical problems he filled in, first with the melancholy end theme from The Hulk TV series segued into Elton John`s Don`t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.

Unfortunately, during fifth song On Your Own I was collared by a security guy for taking photos and forced to put the camera in the cloakroom. Apparently I got off lightly as someone else was thrown out without warning. This clouded the rest of what appeared to be a very good gig as I was worrying whether the camera would still be there on collection. This was such a shame as I was expecting to write a great review of Sense Field tonight, but my heart was no longer in the gig and I therefore have to stick to general comments.

Vocalist Jon Bunch appeared to be in high spirits and spent much of the gig perched on top of the stage-front barrier, holding onto the roof and leaning out into the crowd. Meanwhile John Stockberger on bass is content to stand back and hold down the bottom end allowing Chris Evenson to roam around with a fixed look of concentration.

Tonight`s set covers all five of Sense Field albums. I admit a bias towards their earlier more emo sound, though judging from the crowd reaction I`m not the only one. My own view is that Sense Field were blazing a trail with their older material, where as, the latter day material, however good, falls into the Dawson`s Creek rock category, for want of a better description.

Five of the last six songs are taken from Killed For Less and Building and I can`t help but think Sense Field could have been massive had they followed this route. Having said that, Sense Field seem incapable of writing bad songs as tonight`s set demonstrated. Just a pity I wasn`t in the mood to fully appreciate them.

Sense Field Set List:
You Own Me / Burn / Outlive The Man / Different Times / On Your Own / No Medicine / Killed For Less / Overstand / Theme from The Hulk / Don`t Let The Sun Go Down On Me / I Refuse / Save Yourself / Beatles Song / No Longer Now / Leia / Voice / Building / A Letter To Elise / Sage / Found You