Kerbdog never really made it into huge venues the first time round, but they certainly played places larger than the Camden Barfly - a diminutive little place tucked onto the end of an old pre-war terrace, whose upstairs live room is an L-shaped black box with a stage tucked away at the far end from the entrance, facing the bar. The size feels like it has been reduced much more thanks to the presence of four segments of crowd barrier, which appear out of place and - surely? - unnecessary.
The place starts to fill from the bar downstairs as opening act The Computers take the stage, but more than a few of them headed straight back down again after hearing a few songs. Maybe it was just a case of picking the wrong sort of young band for a support slot with a reformed grunge-metal trio like Kerbdog, but The Computers fail to impress anyone other than themselves. They’re another iteration of what is becoming a formula approach for new bands: first, decide you need a fresh sound; next, find an old obscure genre; then “revitalise” the old genre by playing it faster and screaming instead of singing. Sometimes it works.
But it doesn’t work for The Computers, who sound like a musically shoddy and overdressed Gallows murdering old Cramps tunes. Squawkabilly, anyone? Things might have gone better had the frontman remembered the golden rule of rock’n'roll - if you’re dying on stage between songs, stop talking, pretend not to notice, play your songs and get out of there. If nothing else, it would have cut the set shorter by about five minutes… and that’s five minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
Slaves To Gravity might seem an odd choice for the bill as well, at least at first glance. But once they kick off into their set, it’s revealed to be a pretty astute decision. Slaves To Gravity’s moody, modernised and distinctly British take on grunge rock has all the right sonic elements to put you in mind of the mid-nineties without dragging you through through it all by the numbers. Tommy Gleeson’s voice - surprisingly rich and dulcet considering what a waif of a man he is - oozes between and across the band’s chunky guitar sound like Chris Cornell before he thrashed his throat too hard.
Slaves To Gravity are a much more visual act than the old grunge outfits, though, with Tommy and bass player Toshi Ogawa working the rock-star body language phrase book for all they’re worth without ever seeming desperate or insincere. It’s plain to see - and hear - that these guys take their music very seriously. That said, it can’t have harmed them that Tommy is not just charismatic but dashingly handsome in that razor-blade cheekbones way that girls tend to appreciate.
By comparison to the seemingly endless tedium of the set before them, Slaves To Gravity seem to reach the end of their allotted time incredibly quickly. The strong set certainly helps; it may not quite be “all killer”, but there’s a pleasing absence of filler, and no ill-timed deployment of slow songs or ballads. Slaves To Gravity might be a welcome return to something that used to be a lot more commonplace - the solid work-horse rock band, who may not have a bunch of mega-hits or breakthrough singles up their sleeves, but who simply deliver quality sturdy craftsmanship and performance every time. Their recent début album Scatter The Crow sounds decent enough on headphones, but here the tunes really come to life. If this crowd wasn’t predominantly a thirty-plus demographic on a nostalgia trip, they’d probably score better than the polite enthusiasm they receive.
Because make no mistake, pretty much everyone is here to see Kerbdog, and have reached an age where the bar is a more reliable recourse than support acts. After Slaves To Gravity finish their set, they start to filter upstairs, with more than a few well-worn tour T-shirts brought out of retirement. Nostalgia alone cannot account for the enthusiasm on display; Kerbdog were much loved by a die-hard fanbase, and plainly still are.
That enthusiasm is untarnished by slightly sloppy timing of the first few tunes from a band who plainly aren’t as tightly rehearsed as they used to be. Darrah Butler’s drumming stays in time but fumbles more than a few fills in the first few tunes, and Cormac Battle’s voice takes a while to get warmed up properly, but the chunky riffs are as solid as ever.
The barrier is revealed to have been a wise choice, because everyone pushes forward to make the most of the limited space available. The set is essentially a re-ordered rendition of the classic On The Turn album with a few early favourites thrown in for good measure, and the crowd know the tunes backwards - to the extent that Battle can leave those hard-to-reach sustained howls for the audience to carry from time to time.
The musicianship way be a little loose, but what is unchanged is the sheer enthusiasm and enjoyment of the performance; Kerbdog are evidently stoked to be playing again, making the best of the infectious adulation. However, despite a few jokes about new material, the relentless chants demanding a UK tour are left carefully unanswered - they’re not making promises they won’t deliver on.
The venue rapidly gets very warm and very close; there’s no stage for moshing proper, but there’s plenty of bobbing heads and push-and-shove, giving way toward the end of the set to people old enough to know better (but young enough at heart not to care) to propel themselves from the bar for some haphazard crowdsurfing. Everything is very good-natured, everyone’s all smiles - it’s not just Kerbdog who are revisiting their glory days for the evening.
The set comes to a close with the obvious choice of “Sally” “JJ’s Song”, and when the band drop out for the vocal-only passages the entire room is bawling the lyrics loud enough to compete with the returning guitars, much to the band’s obvious delight. With the calls for a tour still unanswered, Kerbdog sign off to rapturous applause from a small sea of grinning faces, their legacy reasserted. The nineties never died; they just went and found a proper job to pay for their gigging habit.
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Posted in Live reviews |
Tags: alternative, grunge, Kerbdog, metal, retro, Slaves To Gravity, The Computers
August 19th, 2008 at 10:01 am
They played two more songs after Sally. End of green off the debut album and JJ’s Song as an “encore” (they never left the stage)
August 19th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
And that’s what happens when you try to write up your gig notes on the train home after too many lagers! Thanks, Halo; it was “JJ’s Song” as the closer that I meant.