It’s just over a year to the day since Nottingham last took over the East Midlands’ second city (15 miles along the A52) – Sunday 20th October 2002 to be exact – and even then we were overruled by a dodgy referee and and an unjust curfew that made a mockery of our overzealous licensing laws.
Still, tonight is not about 22 blokes kicking a round ball, but more a celebration of the achievements of three of (until now) Nottingham’s best kept secrets, and thanks to the foresight of The Night With No Name’s customer-first orientated promotional activities, anyone with an inkling for taste and diversity will have scrapped their regular Sunday night slot watching ‘Monarch Of The Glen’ for a £3.10 saver return ticket to Derby.
The last time I saw The Grips, their singer Nathan was bleeding all over the Social stage, as horrified members of The Mooney Suzuki hurriedly passed him towel upon towel to quell the flow. Tonight, his band bleed an altogether more wholesome substance that tangibly passes for sweat and dirt but ultimately disguises itself as passion and energy which no amount of type-hype could ever begin to undermine. So I won’t, but here’s a message for anyone who thinks Garage Rock is dead in 2003. Go and see The Grips and their Kwik Fit kamikaze onslaught and you’ll soon realise that the rest of Detroit’s grease-stained mob haven’t even passed the MOT stage yet.
Stage? That’s probably the most insensitive five-letter word you can say to Punish The Atom’s Joey Bell at this moment in time. Why? Because the (invisible) gap at the front cost him the services of his kneecap for the majority of this evening. Thankfully, it did absolutely nothing to impair the performance of either Bell or his three cohorts, and their brutally efficient noise sounded at times like a more comprehensible Fall after a Saki and cider session with Pavement.
‘Finally America Finds The Axe’ and ‘It’s All About The Drugs In The Make Out Club’ sound even more terrifying, autobiographical even, in the context of a live setting, with the wounded soldier that is Bell – a dead ringer for Paul from ‘The Salon’ after eight pints of Boddies – hanging onto the curtain rail at the front of the stage for dear life, until finally one of the Grips gives him a helping hand during a frantic ‘Negative’, a trait which Punish The Atom could never be burdened with.
Although there are strictly no headliners as such tonight, the fact that this is Seachange’s first proper show on home(-ish) territory since becoming Matador’s latest signing raises the anticipation stakes to a level not seen in these parts since Cromford Canal became the second home of ‘Peak Practice’, and when they disperse with possibly their best known songs (‘Learn To Lose’, ‘AvsCo10’ and ‘Superfuck’) at the start of the set, I’m not alone in awaiting the arrival of something extra special.
The fact that it doesn’t happen is possibly due to a lack of familiarity with the band’s new stuff, as their potent breed of dynamic angular guitar-pop offers a uniquely British alternative to Sonic Youth and …Trail Of Dead that only Idlewild in recent years have come anywhere near achieving.
The day has finally arrived when the murky trail of A&R pups venture up to Junction 25 of the M1. Just don’t stop for too long in Radford chaps or we may have your hubcaps…
