Cynicism is the greatest excuse for laziness ever. Whilst the rest of the world are watching Jerry Dammers, The Good Bad The Queen, Hard Fi, and Roll Deep fight the good fight, we decide that it could never compare to the original and head down the road to Barden’s to catch Subpop’s latest signing Oxford Collapse rather than trekking the 5 miles to Victoria Park. After all, I applaud and support the sentiment, but Hard Fi are hardly the Clash, right?
By the time we get there brummy punks Blakfish are already talking the stage. ‘This is going to ruin your evening’ mumbles lead singer Thom before launching into a set of intelligent math like punk that reminds me a lot of Spy Vs Spy or that first Glassjaw album (You know, the one that was that insane rant about his ex-girlfriend – awesome).
Not that that’s a band thing and 35 crazed minutes later, I’m trying to think of the last time I watched a band that made me stroke my chin as much. It’s like all of the nutty bits from every Propagandhi record rolled up into one neat package.
Mirror! Mirror! are on next and they fucking take it apart. Featuring the youngest drummer ever and one of the funkiest dancers in the world on guitar, their whole chaotic take on The Rapture is some of the catchiest shit to come out of the Midlands since the black death.
You can’t help but dance along to these guys and pretty soon most of the crowd have got their groove on to the heavy cow bells and rolling bass lines. I’m expecting big things for these guys, and everybody should get their hands on 'Wolf Gang Bang', it’s the best song of the year without a doubt.
Talking of bands who I’m expecting big things for, Oxford Collapse are next to climb up on the stage. Their new album is a pretty amazing mix of smiley indie rock that reminds me a lot of Built to Spill and the stuff before that was a weird mix of synth pop and agit prop 90s indie.
I have to say I’m a little disappointed by these guys. Starting out strongly, the band’s live sound just doesn’t have the intensity of the records. Perhaps it was the fact that the venue had something like 15 people in it, or the fact that everyone’s danced out from Mirror! Mirror! But the Brooklyn based band just fails to find their rhythm and end up coming across a bit flat.
Songs like ‘Please Visit Your National Parks’ and ‘The Boys go Home’ hint at something under the surface, but the rest of show just blurs into filler, broken occasionally with inane banter about ethnic food that makes my mate American Greg cringe. By the time the band are finishing up, my mind has wondered so far that I’m the set doodling zombies in the back of a notebook. Still, as bummed out as I am, I can’t help but think that if we’d caught them on another day they would have been awesome.
Oh well, you can’t have everything…
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