Live Review: A and ManBREAK at The Cavern, Exeter


THERE are more than 20 people on the Cavern stage and only a few of them are in A. The singer's on top of someone's shoulders and the guitarist and bassist are buried amid the mosh. Hell, it's a bonafide stage invasion.
A's album, How Ace Are Buildings, is a pretty ropey pop-punk affair, but live the band cut free of the shackles of the studio and rock like your dream team of soccer bad boys. Give them a stage and they mutate from a team of Gary Linacres into George Best, Charlie George, Stan Bowles and Robin Friday. And that can only be good for this game.
Cut back into ManBREAK and Steve Swindelli's standing, arms held high, legs wide apart like a rockin' Jesus Christ. He's giving it plenty, but his is no empty-headed vitriol, for ManBREAK are a political petrol bomb waiting to blow up in the face of the mainstream.
Swindelli raps for the underdog, but not the kind of underdog who rolls over and dies. This is positive and in your face and it rocks like hell - which is just about, bizarrely enough, qualifies ManBREAK for this Kerrang! sponsored tour.
And here's me thinking Kerrang! was for losers who got their mums to sew Venom and WASP on their denim jackets.

Author Unknown; From Exeter/Exp Echo, December 5, 1997

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