This show is part of The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothings first full UK tour to promote the bands third album Not Your Typical Victorians that is as much a celebration that the bands singer Andy Heintz has kicked cancers arse as it is of the bands growing status as one of the best Steam Punk bands around.
We arrived in time to catch most of The Blood Tub Orchestras performance and I'm mighty glad we did as they were superb Music Hall steam punk with a slight shoe gazing edge to them, as they play old music hall songs with more modern instrumentation. While we were putting our stuff in the cloakroom and getting a beer they played a great version of Things Are Worse In Russia a song at least one of my Grandmothers used to sing a line or two from at various times here it came with two drummers driving it along and just made me want to get down near the front.
Well soon enough I was down the front when I realised the band had shoegazing legend Debbie Smith on Guitar who I last reviewed earlier in the year in her other current band Blindness but who has also been in Curve and Echobelly among others. Wow this sounds nothing like Blindness as the propulsive drumming gets quite tribal on She can Do Without You that has some wicked lyrics driven along by the key boards and drums.
It Ain't All Honey and It Ain't All Jam was a right old knees up of a tune full of double and triple entendres and a proper tale of marital despair that is followed by the equally sad tale of Father Do Come Home a tale of utter despond and abandonment set to a rollicking tune as they plead with father not to spend the weeks wages on booze once more.
They then went for the Leslie Sarony classic Ain't It Grand When You're Bloomin Well Dead as if it was a long lost Chas & Dave tune in need of a good spruce up it sounded magnificent and I'm trying to remember which version of this song I heard regularly as a kid. They then did the first world war classic We're Glad You've Got A Gun a song dripping with the sarcasm of the foot soldiers in the trenches and one that seems more pertinent now than it has for quite a few years.
They closed there set with the saucy as can be The End Of My Old Cigar which is one of those songs that has many meanings that the kids don't understand but the adults do a great tune to end a very cool set with. I bought the bands We're Glad You've Got A Gun ep afterwards that is on the excellent Phono Erotic label.
Next on where the chronically misnamed Fat Goth as they aren't fat particularly and the drummer is actually pretty skinny and they don't play goth either more like hard core punk meets bits of The Fall and Two Cow Garage. From the opener about Saying Something that had some good Fall like skew whiff guitars and pounding drums they built some killer riffs and nailed down some frantic vocals but really needed to have dressed up more to be on this bill.
The song that seemed to be called We're All In This Together was for me the highlight of the bands set as it married a furious guitar part to the desperate sounding lyrics. As the set progressed I found the black Flag style lyrics about how this was Your Kind Of War drew me in a lot more than the band's music did at times. The other song that stood out was I'm Lost that could easily have been sung by a Fat Goth trying to escape from a small village somewhere.
Fat Goth were pretty good at what they do but I'd like to see them on a more appropriate bill with someone like Baby Godzilla.
|
It was soon time for the packed crowd to welcome to the stage of this in many ways most appropriate venue as this Old Victorian pub was originally the Old Mother Red Cap the sort of place that the original Victorian Ne'er do wells called home. They come on stage to the bands theme tune and lead track from the third album {tmtwnbbfn} that was greeted with great waves of cheering as they launched into Not Your Typical Victorian and they sounded better than ever really tight and full of the righteous fury that we all needed to vent on We're Doing It For the Whigs as the whole of the Underworld screamed that there was no future in Tory Politics.
They then played a really short song that I think was Vive La Difference Engine it really did go by in a blur as if it was a Napalm Death song. A Clean Sweep was next with its lyrics about the life of a chimney Sweep that was a lot darker and more realistic than Chim Chimney.
They then dipped back into the bands earlier albums for a fast and furious version of Charlie Charlie Charlie that had the place bouncing around singing about the origin of the species. Before things once again got Coal Black on Miner and let's face it not many bands can get an audience to sing along to a line like We're all going to die of Silicosis but when Marc Burrows starts screaming that line he gets us all singing along to it and it sounded brilliant and helped along by Andy Heintz Saw playing.
Turned Out Nice Again is a dark soot ridden tale of pollution that seemed to get everyone going and singing about Rats Lice And fleas which meant they might be in need of being measured for a Third Class Coffin that is a rollicking look at how you could still be a third class citizen even in death. Now that's been established it's time to understand that This House Is Not haunted as there is no God No Ghosts and no Afterlife well of course not and how could you think that while listening to Jez Millers more militant than ever drumming.
Bedlam seemed to be the place to send all the non-believers and well a good way to help wind up this set as Andrew O'Neill thanked us again for making his dream of headlining the Underworld come true. Did they close with The Gin Song or was that in the encore my notes are a mess once more what a surprise. Still the place went nuts and they did come back for a well-deserved encore.
The Encore opened with I'm In Love With Marie Lloyd and I'm sure at least half the band are still fixated with Marie Lloyd they then played two more tunes that I can't make head or tail of my notes as to what they might be before they closed with a brilliant sing along to Brunel that was a prefect finish to the tightest set I've seen them play as they keep getting better and are well worth seeing live.
|
