THE STUPIDS, THE HARD ONS, VANILLA POD, JIMMY & THE DESTROYERS
LONDON UNDERWORLD 29/03/09
The two main bands tonight were a throwback to the days I spent throwing myself recklessly into space and hoping someone would catch me off The Marquee stage. I was hoping the memories from a couple of decades ago were going to be relived although I had given the people I was with permission to grab me by the scruff of the neck if I made any moves towards the stage with intent to dive as I knew it was likely to result in a one way trip to hospital. I was slightly concerned to note that the venues main bar was shut and the side door had been opened, I guess ticket sales were not that great but it was a Sunday and stacks of bands had been in town during the last week.
First up was Jimmy And The Destroyers “the worlds first and only 100% surfcore band.” Jimmy was the guy with the massive Mohican on drums, apparently it was his dad on bass and Sploote, the venues stage manager ex of Scorpio Rising on guitar. Blazing into ‘Misirlou’ the number everyone no doubt recognised from Pulp Fiction the crowd was quickly whipped up and any pre gig lethargy was instantly cast off. This lot turned out to be solely instrumental and evoking the likes of Link Wray and Dick Dale they really blew off the cobwebs. They were dynamic to watch too especially the blur of motion that was Mickey in his orange Alcatraz shirt on bass, distorting the fuzzy sound by putting it up to the monitors and constantly moving around. Most of the numbers they played were recognisable, The Shadows ‘Apache’ particularly causing wipe out. This lot are a perfect opening band and could no doubt even get a funeral wake dancing, see them if you get the chance.
I had a feeling Vanilla Pod were not likely to be my thing, a friend had described them as a poor mans Snuff and the opening jagged bass sound on ‘Saturday Night’ did bring promise. Unfortunately things quickly went downhill as the more melodic aspects of the sound and singing came into play and there was no amount of enthusiastic jumping around by the band on stage that was going to impress me. This was punk with a definite vanilla flavour to it and very much did things in the missionary position without a hint of danger or antagonism. Sorry but I prefer my punk to be down, dirty and aggressive and this pop punk despite ‘Best Intentions’ was not going to win me over. The singer perhaps having an idea what I had been writing stuck his tongue out for my camera lens. They did tell us later that this was the first time they had seen The Stupids and also amused by acknowledging that we might have been recovering from last nights Extreme Noise Terror show, which was certainly true in my case. Unfortunately they were never going to get their sort of rabid reaction from this crowd.
Formed in the early 80’s, split up and reformed again The Hard Ons from Sydney Australia have a lot of history and a big back catalogue about them. One thing I had really forgotten was just how damn good they were. “Ah yes you” were my thoughts of instant recognition on seeing Blackie come out and take the microphone stand. The drums were brought forward as though they wanted to be as up close and personal to the audience as possible as they flew into ‘What Would Stiv Bators Do’. I was headbanging straight away at the front and overpowered by the fuzz laden wall of noise that was blowing out the speakers. After newer number ‘A Brand Cigarette’ the words “fuck that was intense” are all that I seem to have managed to write on my notepad. The trio were playing loud, hard and fast and with no in between song audience interaction, it was like a collision of Motorhead, Black Flag, The Beach Boys and Bloodduster or as the band sum up themselves Abba and The Damned. The only real problem was that the vocals were really lost in the mix; I guess the group were just playing so damn loud they couldn’t break through. I vaguely remembered some songs such as the brilliantly entitled ‘Don’t Fear The Reeperbahn’ which hit with a sonically charged devastation. It was right at the end when they finally spoke and told us it was their 25th Anniversary and they only had time for one more. They got the night’s first stage diver and played guitar and bass behind heads with the singer standing on the drums at the finale. The Hard Ons stood erect and proud and they were going to be one hell of a difficult act to follow.
Well I thought The Stupids were the band to do that and took a photo of the set list which had no less than 37 numbers on it (check the picture gallery). Now playing as a trio led as ever by Tommy on drums and vocals but without Ed Shred on guitar I had a lot of expectations about this. I had also had some inspiration with recent reissues of a couple of the albums to review including Van Stupid and Frankfurter, a couple of real classics. By the time I realised we were on the second number ‘I Don’t Like’ I was beginning to think those words are unfortunately true. This just struck as a bit of a shambles and a case of an unpractised band knocking a few old songs out without much thought behind them. Guess you could say there was never much thought in songs like ‘It’s Fun To You’ (introduced as a new one) in the first place but from memory they were always one hell of a lot tighter than this back in the day. Well some people were obviously making the most of it, the guy next to me in particular was doing his best to pummel my already damaged kidneys during ‘Sex Harassed’ and I made the most of some of my favourites such as ‘Rootbeer Death’ even though I constantly thought there was a big spark missing here. Perhaps they should have got Gizz Butt back in the band but this was a stale and tired performance and one that only the drunkest people falling over in the pit could honestly have come away from thinking it was excellent. Audience participation was mentioned by the band but on the whole they were not getting it. ‘Megazombie’ put a polite smile on my face but that was more out of courtesy than anything else and I left feeling slightly gutted from this one but luckily the fantastic performance from The Hard Ons had definitely softened the blow.
Pete Woods
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