Around 18 months ago RTM saw Baby Godzilla open for Ginger just up the road at The Asylum. As part of the show the drummer hung upside down from a beam and they were a genuinely terrifying experience.
The Nottingham mob are back again doing this for the Black Spiders and in that time not much has changed. One guitarist is on the venue floor, the singer/guitarist is on the bar and the drummer, although he remain upright this time, removes his drums from the stage on one occasion. You may have spotted a pattern here. When you talk about Godzilla you don’t talk about the music, you talk about the antics, and that, perhaps is why they do it. Musically, they are rather forgettable hardcore, but mix the whole thing together and it becomes rather unsettling. See them live once, but leave it at that.
Hawk Eyes were last in these parts supporting Therapy? And then – as now – the Leeds mob seem to lack something that will elevate them from support band status. There is nothing wrong with
them but at the same time there is nothing you want to shout about either. Once known as Chickenhawk, they had a couple of catchy songs, not too dissimilar from tonight’s headliners, called “I Hate This, Do You Like It?” and “Serpico” disappointingly they play neither track this evening, but they do seem to go down reasonably. Again, if we are being honest, they are not a band that is ever going to be one of our favourites.
That cannot be said for Black Spiders. Right from the moment when we saw them support The Wildhearts next door four years ago, we have bored everyone we possibly could with them. Their early EP’s were quite brilliant, the “Sons of the North” record that followed it was quite outstanding and they have followed it with This Savage Land, which gratifyingly still sounds like Motorhead fighting the Wildhearts in a drunken brawl.
Lead track from this “Knock You Out” kicks us off this evening like a boot to the face, before a fabulous “Stay Down” follows. Thus the pattern is set, the next 75 minutes is largely split half and half between classic old material and soon-to-be classic new stuff, so “Kiss Tried To Kill Me” is still simultaneously dumb, stupid and insanely catchy, mixes with “Balls” from the “…Land” opus, which is simultaneously dumb, stupid and….well you get the picture.
A glorious hour or so is brought to a close by “What Good’s A Rock Without A Roll” which means 250 people get to scream “Eat thunder, shit lightning” at the top of their voices, and whichever way you look at it, that is pretty cool.
The band might have dreams of playing Wembley, but are realistic enough to still have other jobs, and the fact that, to be honest, they are doing this for fun shines through. A few years ago Black Spiders were voted the best underground metal band in Britain. No longer (totally) underground, they are now just one of Britain’s best bands. Full stop.
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