This show is part of the closing down festival for Corsica Studios who have been gentrified out of the Elephant & Castle Railway arch, that they have been in for most of the century. This comeback show by Big Sexy Noise sold out so quickly they added a second date the night before.
First on were Export/Import who are a 6 piece from Canning Town, whose brass section came onstage after playing their way through the packed crowd, before the madness really got going, they were playing atonal noise jazz with drum and bass techno bits, a mad as a hatter singer, who looked like the re-incarnation of Jesus Jellet and danced and performed just as madly. Not a clue what he was singing about other than the odd diddy wah diddy bit, while the fusillade of twin saxes and trumpet fought with the violinist and the keyboards and gadgets man who kept hitting the bowel shaking bass button.
They made sure to always sound out of tune and slightly or totally off, apart from one 60 second part when the singer shut up and the brass section seemed to go into a cover of Albert Ayler's The Bells, that was the only time they sounded totally in sync, then the madness descended once more and we had our ears pummelled with dark noise and whatever nonsense the singer was up too, towards the end his vocals became clear on the mantra to always love, once a dream or a reality. They may have been perplexing and messy, but are in no way on the list of worst bands I've seen open for Lydia Lunch during the very nearly 40 years I have been seeing her live.
After the break Big Sexy Noise came on to loud cheers and James Johnston and Ian White launched into Mahakali Calling the bands usual opener, James guitar was very bassy and totally in our faces as Lydia started declaiming the lyrics in typically forthright fashion. Lydia was desperate to make clear we shouldn't Cross The Line that Ian's huge drums nailed down before they ended with Lydia re-working some lines from Pushing Too Hard. Lydia was wickedly salacious on Balling The Jack with James guitar getting super intense with squalls of noise showering our ears.
Lydia dedicated Your Love Don't Pay My Rent to all the ladies with useless boyfriends before they tore the place apart with this monumental hymn to loser blokes, who ponce off the women they try to rule over, taking all the drugs, drinking all the booze and destroying the telly while they are at it, it had a few false endings and like it always was, it was the centrepiece of the set. Lydia continued her rant against useless men on Doughboy that had frenzied guitar and super powerful drums.
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No one was left in any doubt by Lydia that we should all Trust The Witch while she took a few swigs of her drink and prowled the stage having a go at a bloke or two while she was at it, they then dipped further into her back catalogue for a brutally bruising version of Collision Course that was followed by the Harry Crews classic Gospel Singer that was treated by most of the audience as being a sing along classic, no matter how many times Lydia stopped the band and fluffed the lines to the chorus, it still sounded brilliantly dark and menacing. It is always the case that Big Sexy Noise covering Kill Your Sons has more intensity and insanity than Lou Reed got out of his own song, this careened around the room and we were all afraid we would be choking like a son of a gun too.
Lydia told us we all needed Something Witchy anything that destroys the white patriarchy would be good right now, Ian's drum sound was just huge, James seemed to sound like he was playing two guitars it was intense and totally powerful, with Lydia delivering her message with intense force. Lydia told us that was the end of the set, but they didn't go anywhere and after some loud cheering she told us this would be the final song, before they rampaged through Forever On The Run like Lydia actually goes running, yeah right. This just showed how wonderfully intense Big Sexy Noise are and how brilliant it is that they are together again for a while.
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