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| Ikara colt + The Martini Henry Rifles + Father Of Boon + The Blood Group The 100 Club, London. 04.09.02 The prevailing phrase for tonights gig is ‘fuck it’s hot’, variations being ‘fuck it’s fucking hot’ and ‘my beer is boiling’. Before first support The Blood Group crash to a sweaty noisy end, the 100 Club is sardine packed with shirt n tie’d indie kids, posing fashionistas and various stray members of the incestuous London rock n roll scene. Still struggling somewhere near the bar, Transdis are sure Father Of Boon could be onstage, and might be playing a brass instrument of some kind and as we wade our way through the pool of sweat towards the vicinity of the stage, we pass some tart screaming as her face starts to melt off. The Martini Henry Rifles are a sprawly and messy and stuttery leather jacket ripped jeaned punk explosion. ‘This is our last song, it’s only 56 seconds long!’ vomits the lead rifle, insanely proud that his band don’t hang around, they leap right in there for the kill, and after run off like blood stained hyenas, cackling into the night. They’re fucking ace. Ikara colt have been getting more and more unhinged and unpredictable of late. There was the Tower Records trashing, the stage invasion at Reading and the ban on them playing Leeds. Just what the hell are they going to do next? Ritual sacrifice? Self-immolation? And maybe things have been exaggerated and talked about a little too much. Ikara colt are just here to play a gig. And that’s what they do, in their own haphazard fuck-up way. They piss all over the usual suspects, ‘After This’, ‘One Note’, ‘Rudd’. Despite the Amazonian rainforest conditions Paul refuses to part with his Parisian student blazer “we know it’s hot in here, but lets make it hotter shall we?” he pants. ‘At The Lodge’ is done sans Casio after a stage invader trashed it at Reading (“Was it you? Cheeky fucker”). Newies off the soon to be unleashed Basic Instructions EP are bashed out, and as a new venture ‘Your Vain Attempts’ is CD backed, letting the rest of the band collapse at the stage edge while Paul goes it alone. The set remains short despite the headline slot, leaving more time between songs for Paul to talk bollocks and insult the audience, recalling Nicky Wire and James Dean Bradfield* in the pre-fat hey days of the Manics. The band do their best to rip the joint up, but it’s just too fucking hot to make any real sort of enthusiastic movement. As ‘Sink Venice’ flails to an end, a solitary madman in a cloth cap and Idlewild tee-shirt leaps off the stage to land in the sticky mess that once resembled an audience. Rachel. *To be fair, JDB is looking a bit slim these days. just shame about the new songs hey. |