SKINNY PUPPY & HOUNDS –
LONDON FORUM 18/07/10
On a sabbatical from gigs during July, partly because with festival season there is very little on and also as too many means the fun goes out of things a bit, especially when you can see so many bands at the aforementioned. This was the one exception though as the headliners are always worth seeing and do not play that often in the UK. The support band are a different matter and could not find out who they were at all until getting to the venue and seeing it was an Essex band called Hounds. It looks like they have got a couple of good shows and are also supporting the Prodigy but they are to be honest playing to audiences who do not care in the slightest about support bands. The singer looked a bit like Kirk Brandon and berated the audience for not giving it a bit more, talk about work cut out especially seeing as songs such as ‘Fear Of Gold’ were not that inspiring. This was guitar driven rock with some industrial sensibilities and a bit on the commercial side, in fact I could be nasty and say they were a little Britpop, plodding and unmemorable. We were told that the singer had missed his honeymoon to play this show (hope whoever went with his wife enjoyed themselves) and they played their biggest hit ‘Lies For Lies’ and asked us try and acknowledge it as their biggest smash single. Yeah we can but pretend…
Déjà vu as the stage was set up with a caged box at the side as per the last Mythrus tour, we hoped the frontman was not going to be playing behind it for the first three songs again. Nope as he came out we realised no chance of that as his costume was a bit too big to fit in. Standing at what looked like 10 foot tall Niveg Ogre shuffled on using a zimmer-frame. He was dressed in white PVC garb guaranteed to show up any blood splatters, a bearded mask and the sort of hat that looked like a cross between a chimney and grandmaster of the KKK wear. Lucky we had him to fixate on as cEvin Key and Justin Bennett were obscured by respective key and drums set up.
Musically they pounded from the opening bars and by second song Hatekill the mania was spreading off the stage and into the audience. Mental was not the word to describe the deranged frontman, playing with the cage at the side like a teasing lover, he stroked and molested it as well as hobbling around and staring at the audience like he was looking at aliens from another planet. A TV Screen on the box and big back screen accompanied it all with road movie like vistas unspooling; acid who needs it, this was a trippy scenario. The City Of Rott zimmer got thrown away and the beats rained down into ‘Addiction.’ It was a set that took us through the bands history, a bit too early for new stuff from end of August release ‘In Solvent See’ but old numbers like VIVIsectVI’s ‘Dogshit’ took us right back to the dawn of industrial and had people bugging out in weird body popping dance moves. ‘Politikill’ with its anthem rousing “are you up for the suck,’ lyric was instantly recognisable and went down a storm. The ever animated front man was not standing still and was now resembling a zombie, mummy burns victim and he caught a stage prop that looked like two ancient cross caned shepherd crooks without missing a note as Jesus wants to be ‘Ugli’ pounded out the speakers and visions of Christ took over the imagery. Errr dude your hats smoking, well he put it back on and this just made things that bit weirder for ‘Assimilate,’ then it was all over.
Well not much chance of that, the audience were stomping feet and baying for the pups to come back on. Kind of surprising as Ogre decided to do so and play the last few numbers looking as normal as he ever does, without any costume. ‘Worlock’ simply had to be played and was another highlight but as it was Sunday night and the normal half tube network shut down, engineering works I had to fly and missed the last couple of numbers, shame as I could easily have watched another hour or so of this. Skinny Puppy again proved themselves a unique oddball entity in this crazy rock n roll world. Looking forward to that new album dropping in.
Pete Woods
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