There’s a bloody big pole in the middle of the stage. What sort of entertainment was this pub built for? Not scruffy guitar-wielding urchins, I’ll wager…
The Creeps are already in full swing when we duck in out of the rain. I didn’t see any pole dancing up there, so I’m gonna have to deduct some points. But no biggie; the buzzsaw guitar drives along some big ol’ melodies, one of which sounds just like Dave Grohl and pals running a monster truck over “Disco 2000”. Nice. 'Popstar' has a bit more of an angular noo wave jerky stop start momentum to it, like Wire-influenced end of Britpop. But for the most part it’s like Feeder never sold their souls to the string section. A good name to write on your schoolbag too…
Houston 500 know exactly what to do with the pole. Singer Dave, Essex Boy incarnate, wraps his suited body around it, eliciting otherworldly shrieks and yelps that make you wonder if his ma got knocked up by Iggy Pop twenty-some years ago. H500’s pounding rock machine thunders along, powered by a low stoner-metal growl from the guitars. 'Endless' has the makings of a rock anthem; music for sweaty truckers to pump their fist and wrestle each other, but ‘not in, like, a gay way dude…’ 'Queen of the Crackwhores' adds an edge of Crüe-like sleaze to the pop-metal fun – tongue in cheek or just plain dumb? Either way it’s a great soundtrack to spitting beer at your mates. So for Houston 500, major label success, adulation stateside and Lollapalooza await. You should see ‘em sooner.
Every Friday night should end with a tiny Brazilian dragging a drum kit on top of himself. Wry’s Mario, clad in red, is dwarfed by his Country-Gent style guitar let alone a heap of drums. He also makes good use of the pole, which is heartening to see. Wry give us enough fuzzed-up glam-psych noise, flirting with T-Rex pop, but with it’s eyes on the stars, exploding out into Spacemen 3-like, ahem, cavernous cathedrals of sound… pretentious, Moi? The sky-scraping, echo laden guitar and brutal drums, beaten by a complete fucking madman collide to give us a glimpse of punk meeting glam meeting Ride-esque shoegazing in an alternative Sgt Pepper universe. For all the fuzz and the expansive sound, there’s an irresistible sense of pop melody driving all of these tunes along. Dancing is mandatory. They know how to party in Brazil, so they do…
