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Karnataka

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This was a strange gig. To start off with it was at the playhouse which is a seated venue with quite a steep gradient and we were sat right at the front. This meant that we could hear the drums and the guitar amplifiers directly, rather than through the PA, which was mostly behind us. I’m still not sure how we could hear the vocals so well, maybe it was the monitors, and we could hardly hear the keyboards, which is not a bad thing.

Karnataka are a great band, with a dreadful guitarist. Honestly, I really don’t know why they bother with him. Sometimes he plays badly, other times he’s not quite playing the right stuff. The rest of the band, especially the drummer seem really tight. I felt a little sorry for Hayley as her voice took a little while to warm up and she’s obviously not 100% comfortable on stage yet. When she gets going she’s incredible.

The other strange thing was that for most of the second half of the set the drummer’s high hat was falling apart. He spent as much time playing with one hand with a drumstick in his mouth while he tried to fix it with the other hand as he did playing with two hands. It still sounded fantastic though.

Karnataka only played a couple of songs I knew all night, which is totally my fault for only really knowing Delicate Flame of Desire. Those tracks really showed the flaws in the current guitarist. When I first saw them in the late 90s on the Delicate Flame of Desire tour the guitarist was superb.

Strangeness aside I really enjoyed Karnataka and will certainly be seeing them again given the chance. Mostly Autumn have played Bloodstock, so why not karnataka?

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