The Small Ballroom, Newcastle
Sunday 20 October 2019
Reviewer : Roger Killjoy
Photographer : Kevin Bull
Follow the tattooed, heavyset gentlemen in black shirts on Watt Street and you’ll end up tonight in the cozy surrounds of The Small Ballrooms new home, 48 Watt Street. Messthetics, a three piece band with two ex-Fugazi members, open the show with their angular instrumental work outs. The playing is tight, the tunes are at times spacey, crunching, and spasmodically jerking. The sound is thick, kick drum sitting low and menacing in the mix and driven hard by Brendan Canty from the back of the stage. Most songs shine a light on Canty’s playing and the impressive guitar work of Anthony Pirog. There’s plenty to like in a live setting but it’s not something I could see hitting the turntable at home with anything approaching regularity.
The Mark of Cain are rapturously received after the briefest of intervals. There are venue curfews in place (personally, I vote for all shows to wrap up by 9:30, I’m getting old dam it!) and we have the entirety of 1989’s Battlesick album to get through. Now I’m only 6 years older than the album, and my point of entry was 1995’s Ill At Ease. I’ve dipped my toes into the older material but never spent too much time with Battlesick or The Unclaimed Prize, preferring much more the Ill At Ease, This Is This and Songs Of The Third And Fifth trio of albums. Tonight is a revelation of what I’ve been missing. Buried under the thin, claustrophobic 80’s indie production on the album is a snarling beast of churning basslines, twisting guitar lines and simple but thundering drum patterns, almost machine like. While jumping from Battlesick to This Is This on the stereo is an immediate and markedly different sonic landscape, on stage they are revelations of a clear line of evolution of one of the finest and most pummeling live bands the country has to offer.
‘Wake Up’ explodes with bruising volume and aggression, ‘Dead Man’s Mail’ and ‘Call in Anger’ are particular highlights of the Battlesick set, consider me now a convert to this earlier slab of TMOC brilliance. The record, even with remastered sheen, still pales to the live performance but has opened up decidedly with the live show as a reference point. And as much as Battlesick is the star of the show tonight, its clear from the audience reaction to the remainder of the set list that Ill At Ease is the glistening jewel in the TMOC crown. ‘Interloper’ in particular is jaw dropping, Eli has really cemented his place behind the drum kit and blown away the empty shoes of John Stanier, large as they are. ‘Familiar Territory’ is sheer bludgeoning force, ‘LMA’ is still brilliantly dancing that tightrope of delicacy and power, and ‘Point Man’ brings the show to a forceful close.
No matter how many times I see this band, each time is revelatory. One of the finest live bands I’ve ever been in the presence of, now let’s have an Ill At Ease 30th anniversary tour in another 6 years, and the lavish vinyl reissue that classic album has long deserved.
