Good restaurants do this sort of thing. Keep you waiting; and waiting; then serve up the goods so stylishly you realise it was well worth the delay. Well over an hour after the nominal kick-off time, Smithy and crew finally locate the stage door, and though the first few minutes are a shade rickety, they’re flying by the time they get to ‘Sparta FC’, an unholy football terrace chant in which Chelsea fans are cheerfully threatened by blade-wielding Eastern European lunatics.
This sets the tone for the evening: very light on back-catalogue excavations, the focus is firmly on recent if not quite newborn material, with at least half of 2005’s Heads Roll getting an airing, much to the appreciation of a surprisingly youthful crowd which pogos without mercy in vintage ’77 speed-psycho fashion. Down the front is downright dangerous, though we’re fairly sure nobody was killed.
The few ‘oldies’ in the set receive similar treatment, ‘Carry Bag Man’ and ‘Mr. Pharmacist’ harking back to ‘60s Seattle proto-punk, but stretched out into near-10 minute workouts – and if the man himself doesn’t quite seem at his most energetic, any deficit in that area is easily addressed by a band that seems hellbent on inciting virtual riot. Jim Morrison’s vision of ‘the whole shithouse going up in flames’ has never seemed quite so prophetic.
And it’s entirely possible that they’re yet to reach their peak as a live band. Maybe in 2043. Meet you there.