We hadn’t come across Nottingham ’s Baby Godzilla before aside from reading a tweet from Ginger that said “Baby Godzilla plan to go big tonight. This is frankly terrifying.”
Even that, though, doesn’t really prepare you for seeing the guitarist swinging from a beam before the first song starts and the drummer hanging upside down from the same vantage point before it finishes.
But whereas other bands, notably Dillinger Escape Plan use the stage as an assault course, Godzilla take it a little bit further, playing most of their set from the floor, creating their own personal moshpit. So much so that RTM – sitting quietly at the side and not blessed with the greatest balance in the world – swaps our stool for a chair in fear of being knocked down.
The music? Well the music hardly matters, but think former Ginger touring partners Hawk Eyes meets the aforementioned Dillinger and you would be close, but Godzilla – who bring the drums off stage for the last song - are a band best seen live you suspect.
The Guns are the band that has to follow that. And the South Wales mob do a good job of it. Far more conventional that Godzilla their songs bring to mind early Groop Dogdrill or GU Medicine (both of whom have appeared with Ginger in the dim and distant past), they have that dirty British rock and roll thing down pretty well.
Their “Follow The Guns” album was recorded in 2007 but delayed and perhaps because they have played these songs so long, or perhaps because they are live and full of adrenaline they are a much heavier proposition than we had been expecting. Set closer “Gordon’s and Lemonade” has a carefree singalong vibe and their set is an impressive one.
As mentioned in December RTM has a long history with the man now know as Ginger Wildheart. Between the years of 1991-96 he produced some of the greatest moments in the history of British music. Simply put, on a string of three albums and countless EP’s, the Wildhearts for five years could do no wrong. And if their gigs might have sometimes been a shambles, they were always exciting.
The intervening years – the on-off Wildhearts, the side projects, the solo albums of varying qualities and styles – have been less kind perhaps, but you don’t just like Ginger, rather like a football is forgiven a lean season, if you are a Ginger fan, you support him.
As such, RTM must lay its cards on the table. We don’t like the new solo album “555%”. The one that’s taking the rock world by storm, the one that has got him in The Sun, the one that had the listening parties trending on Twitter, the one that made a quarter of million pounds on the Pledge Music site before it has been released and got Ginger a spot on the Download stage in the process (Ginger dismisses anyone who doesn’t like the album as a “moaning cunt” onstage later.)
Whether we like it or not, though, is immaterial, as we still bought the damn thing.
Around about 10 years ago, we went to the much-missed JB’s in Dudley to watch The Wildhearts do a warm up for an arena tour supporting The Darkness. They did a blistering half hour of hits and came back and played a load of obscure Wildhearts stuff. It was one of the greatest shows I have ever seen Ginger play.
Tonight we are told, is to follow a similar format. First, the band are going to play their Download set and then they are coming back. That however, is where the likeness ends. First they play “Another Spinning Fucking Rainbow” from the new album, before throwing in a massive curveball. 20 years of following Ginger has taught you to expect the unexpected, but even still it was a shock that he’s dusted off the incredible Silver Ginger 5 album and the band – the same one he had at Christmas, three guitarists and Ingrid the Swedish backing singer who is infused with the spirit of Bez from the Happy Mondays it seems – is racing through “Anyway But Maybe.” “Mazel Tov Cocktail” is transformed into a huge party before two rarely played Wildhearts classics “Do The Channel Bop” and “Inglorious?” (which was played at the Christmas shows) close things.
So far, so Ginger. Here he is at Download and he’s eschewing the hits – and even better, he’s still brilliant.
As promised they are soon back for a much longer set, there’s a smattering of new solo tracks (“Just Another Song About Someone” the standout) a few Wildhearts rarities “In S.I.N” making an always welcome appearance) and a few album tracks like “You Took The Sunshine From New York” and “The Hard Way” For our money, though, the highlights are the pair of SG5 songs “Girls Are Better Than Boys” and “Sonic Shake.”
In 2012 this is a different Ginger. He’s having fun, and these days you don’t think the gig is going to end either as a fight or in chaos, and he might just be as tonight’s last song says a “Geordie In Wonderland” at last.
This is Ginger minus the same hit singles he always plays and, whether you like the solo stuff or not, he was magnificent.
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