Live Review from The Underground Festival @ Fanzone
The night moved on as one of the most professional bands in town took the stage. Dr. Eggs, as always, were all dressed in a super-coordinated manner, and I daresay that the women won; wearing Betty-Boop-like polka-dotted dresses but sporting guitars, they looked cool. The set was, as usual, full of smoothly arranged, RATM-style rock, interspersed with beats of some nature and samples of various songs. There’s a lot of nu-metal in their sound, like on Whisky and Passport, but there’s a punky side to them as well, as on Boost, which brought out their more Faith No More side. The set feature the typical athletic theatrics from singer Joul, jumping every which way and off of everything and dances of various kinds, and was accompanied by the frolicking (there’s really no other word for it) from both guitarists, which was unusual to say the least. In typical fashion, nearly every song segues into the next, so it was a well-orchestrated, solid set. What was less predictable was their take on the Tra La La Song; I did a few whatever-the-aural-version-of-double-takes-is before I realised “Wow, they’re really doing the One Banana, Two Banana song”. They followed this up with the ska-y, Sublime-like Sunset Boulevard which they did pretty well. After the surprise died down, it actually became entertaining to watch and listen to. As they ended their set with a proper goodbye song, it was clear that they’d gotten the crowd on their side.
— Shashwati Kala
Live review from Planetrox China 中國 Final 2013:
Setlist:
1. Back
2. Whisky and Passport
3. Psychowhite
4. Boast
5. Final
The 20-minute-set format adopted by many band comps is unforgiving. A lot of acts find it constraining and struggle to hit their stride. This was absolutely not the case for Dr Eggs. Despite a relatively complex set up including pre-programmed backing tracks, so often responsible for confounding band members and engineers alike, everything about this group screamed self-assured professionalism. And with all four kitted out in matching uniforms and unified by their energy, enthusiasm and sense of fun, there was plenty of on-stage chemistry.
Frontman Joul was joined tonight by scenester Yan on guitar and an unfamiliar drum/bass backline. Starting with an eyebrow-raising sample, the foursome slammed into their first track and were loud and tight from the outset. Joul is obviously the focal point, spitting out a relentless chain of lyrics through a range of different effects, dancing like the stage is twice its actual size and getting right up in the audience’s grills. The mood is infectious, most obviously inspiring his fellow band members and gradually winning over the crowd as well. Although arguably an electro-rap band (I say arguably because I have no idea if that’s actually a genre) there’s a nu-metal bent to some of their material which meant that the regular instrumentation was able to strut its stuff. The bassist was rock solid and had a few dance moves of her own, while the drummer was a real highlight, laying down fast, heavy beats in perfect time.
Dr Eggs dealt with the short set by playing just four songs and seguing seamlessly from each to the next. This was probably to their advantage as they were able to play their strongest two or three songs, there wasn’t enough time to become repetitive or outstay their welcome, and they were able to build energy and maintain the crowd’s attention. They were also lucky not to be the first or second act on stage, as the sound crew had figured out the right levels by the middle of the night and Dr Eggs had the best mix up until that point. Having said that, I had the sense that dodgy sound wouldn’t have derailed them tonight anyway. A dynamic performance by a group of seasoned pros.
— Brendan Clift
Live review from Anti-Social Media Underground:
Setlist:
1. Back
2. Take on Me (A-Ha cover)
3. Whisky and Passport
. J’vais t’pecho
5. Contre Moi
6. Little Thing
7. Human Behaviour
8. Boost
The second act of the night, too, was an act that had not played at The Underground for a solid few years, and were evidently missed. Unlike the case with Innisfallen, almost the entire membership of the band was changed, except, of course, for core member and the good doctor himself, singer Joul. Now, as I have said before, I am close to allergic to the word ‘electro’, and almost distrustful of it. It, to me, is permanently associated with lame synth and stupid booping sound effects that were the staple of music videos in the 80s and early 90s (despite the number of good electronic musicians I have heard here in HK, I should say). So, naturally, I was skeptical of what ‘electro-punk’ might mean too.
In hindsight, I’m glad to report, these worries seemed superfluous, as the music was quite consistently awesome. There’s a LOT of Noughties rock in their sound, in particular the manner in which the instruments come together to form one thrashing yet slick mass of heavy and compressed, heavy beats. This is covered by the alternating rapping/singing of Joul, in his adenoidal yet forceful voice (which, unusually, sounds quite good when singing), and the concoction is completed by a liberal dose of frenzy. Performance and music are both frantic and wild, and they’re quite the spectacle on stage, running about like balls of energy looking to exhaust supplies, and are quite good at the stage prattle as well. Which made it a particular pity that the crowd that night were the sort who wouldn’t respond to repeated requests to move closer to the stage; they seemed much too taken aback to do so…. Oh well.
The set started off with a medieval-like recorded bit and on to a piano concerto-like thingy, and on in this vein, while the band on stage made funny faces. The music is something like a mix of the style of Faith No More and the spirit of bands like The Screamers and Nervous Gender, in its mix of (very generally) rap rhythms and hardcore punk melodies (like onContre Moi or Boost, or the almost Defiant Scum-like J’vais t’pecho). Their cover of A-Ha’s Take on Me was a real surprise, because of how much and how well they changed it up – I would say it’s almost as good as Reel Big Fish’s cover, in terms of taking a mediocre song and making it interesting and fun. The electronic bits added texture to the whole heavy rock sound without being jarring or interfering with the songs’ sound, as in the more dancey Little Thing. There is a more RATM-like side to them, like the storming Whisky and Passport. Their particular pastiche of post-punky-hardcore-punk-funk is solid, heavy, danceable and VERY fun to watch live, and all the flash is backed up by genuinely good tunes, though I have to say that the songs verge on sounding samey. A good example indeed of a band that must be watched live to understand what they’re about, and they certainly drove home the purpose of the show that night.
– Shashwati Kala
Live Review from Underground 37: Well this band knows how to make an entrance in their matching red tracksuit tops and sun visors down over their faces. There’s plenty of bouncing, climbing on top of stuff and theatrics by Joul their lead singer who was wearing a red Superman t-shirt under his tracksuit top. But it’s not all just show. This band did a novel take on A-ha’s Take On Me, moved into an instrumental piece, had some Gallic sounding rock and then ended with some even harder rock! Exhausting! Chris in Hong Kong
