There are many places to buy a drink in Southsea. Two public houses perch upon a nearby corner, a Thresher stands next door to the venue and the bar inside the Wedgies is always packed well over capacity. We are also talking PORTSMOUTH here. Business boomed and Kenickie pissed off.
The evening started nicely enough. Seafood, a band with a strange compulsion to be Mogwai doing Urusei Yatsura, paddled through a couple of over-long 'lo-fi' epics which were pleasant enough and especially amusing due to the drum kit's inability to stay standing. Lovely. If not slightly pretentious.
Well, well, what have we here? A 15 minute break! BUY MORE DRINK! AND MORE! Something was afoot. Some obviously out of place 'lads' (the type who were obviously there to assess Marie's breast situation and 'check out' the new keyboardist they'd read about in their brother's NME) tookup station. We were in for fun, I could tell. The already unhappy Kenix (their #36 chart position was announced only a few minutes earlier) came on without their guitars and did a lovely a cappela version of 'Come Out 2Nite', a refreshing change to the song's previous incarnation. This is where the pushing started. This could be
tolerated if not frowned upon. Some people weren't here to appraise the new direction. 'Run Me Over' passed with only slight injury (the choruses did present a quickly taken opportunity for further throwing of bodies into other bodies, though), and 'I Would Fix You' was majorly a singalong, although
a certain group (I think we know) looked lost and seemed to have the urge to chant something - probably 'Vindaloo'.
Marie's disco dancing dazzler 'Magnatron' was pisstake bait, as was Lauren's ballet dancing antics during 'Psychic Defence' - the songs themsleves being blindingly great chunks of magic. 'Sixties Bitch' was where they got restless, the throwing changing to hurling and the shouting now being done with the hands. Couldn't hear the song - too much abuse going over our heads. I was told it was lovely.
It got ugly during the fast bit at the end of 'In Your Car' and
escalated during the sublime 'Stay In The Sun' as the 'lads' showed they had a nice line in homophobia and started taking their disppointment (they were looking forward to the 'punk' songs - like it says in a faded 1995 Melody Maker review of 'Catsuit City') out on an innocent fanzine writer. A bit of a rumble ensued (bit being an understatement) and ejections were forthcoming for all the troublemakers, as was a huge cheer as they left. By this time, Kenickie, I'm afraid, had left the
building. It can't have been easy. I don't think they'll be coming back.
What followed were many arguments with the security blokes who decided to forcibly remove everybody, shouting "There's nothing to see" as much as they could, to make them sound efficient. Or something. Bad end to what was, performance-wise, a bloody good gig. If they had played the planned encore (Come Out 2Nite full speed version), I'm sure events could have been plenty more mingin than they actually were. I blame 'Lunch At Lassiters'.
sorry, my reviews are always too long...
lukey monkey boy 8-)