This rammed to the rafters show was a Baba Yaga's Hut night and we got in while the first band was playing. Trouble is, on a bill like this not only have I forgotten who they were but what they sounded like as well!!
Never mind, soon enough Gallon Drunk were on and sounding as loud and menacing as ever with James screaming at us that You've Had Enough and it was only the first song! They may have been going for maximum distortion as he sang it but still this was why we thought they might be here to Save Me as Terry Edwards put on his sax for the first skronks of the evening and just blasted at us while James was banging his guitar and hammering at the keyboards.
Bad Servant sounded like they were trying to get to the dissonant heart of the matter and had almost made it. Just as the Big Breakdown just had James lurching all over the place and wringing the feedback and dissonance at us while somehow Ian White held everything together on the drums and Pierre, the current bass player just kept playing his fluid, melodic lines to underpin everything.
Terry was doing his best maraca workout on Two Wings Mambo and then I think it's on what I have down as The Void (but is probably something else) he was busy back on the sax making the dirtiest, nastiest sounds he could come up with. They closed with a great dirty version of Some Cast Fire that saw James and Terry swapping places as they went from Keyboards to Harmonica, Guitars and vocals for James and Sax and Keyboards for Terry and on one of the swaps Terry went flying across the stage and only just managed to keep his feet, landing with his hands on the keyboards and adding to the frenzied mania.
This was a much more ragged set than the one they played at the Lexington a few weeks ago but, damn, compared to what Martin Rev was about to put us through they sounded like a pop band!
Yes after a short break it was time for The Synth legend and one half of Suicide MARTIN REV to play a very rare solo show. The last time he played one in London I managed to go to the wrong venue as they had to switch to a larger venue due to ticket demand. This time it was sold out and could have been in a bigger venue, or at least when he began his set it could have.
Martin was playing a very large Korg keyboard and assorted other gadgets that included a sampler and drum machine and from the outset he didn't so much play the keyboards as maul them, hitting them with his fists and arms and getting the nastiest noises out of them. Yes he also sang but the vocals were echo-plexed and distorted almost as much as the keyboard sounds were to the point of being undecipherable most of the night.
Just watching how he beat at the keys like they were a percussion instrument was fascinating as a man of his age shouldn't look like he's contorting his body to hit the right sounds with his elbows just eviscerating us with the sound and fury. After this assault, the sampler would be set to play an almost pop song while Martin just mauled it with noise and nastiness.
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We got a glimpse of the techno he has influenced with a salsa based tune that was all dance-y for about 30 seconds and then again the keyboard ripped it to shreds of noise and dislocations. The original sample seemed so far from what was the undertow that the juxtaposition was immense and intriguing even if by this point of the assault some people were gravitating towards the back and possible lower volume. Ultimately, the only way to escape this assault on our ears was to leave and a few people took that option as Martin still has the ability to make people run for their ears' sake.
The next tune had a doo-wop sample for Martin to mangle and wreck and take to levels we hadn't imagined before this set started. It seemed he was singing about his baby but it sounded like a nightmare being visited on said baby. Then, as he went on a full keyboard assault with both arms, his keyboards collapsed and crashed onto the stage.
Martin shuffled over to the microphone and apologized that there would now be a short break, but as the roadie ran onstage and they pulled the keyboards back up, the Sampler kicked into life and was playing Surrender, so Martin went with it and while the roadie fixed everything and the sampler carried on with Surrender Martin sang it for us, thus providing one of the highlights of the show, and the only calm part of his set. It was a lovely version of this old Suicide classic which was winding down when the keyboards kicked back into life and Martin mauled them to finish the song.
We were back in the maelstrom of nasty as all hell sounds that led into what sounded like a nosebleed techno version of Rocket USA complete with Martin screaming the title at odd intervals in-between the punishing beats and nasty sounds he got from punching and banging those keyboards into submission.
He finished with a tune that used a sample of The Wanderer that then had layers of distorted noise and nastiness heaped on top of it while he sang about Kansas City. By this stage, half the audience was begging for mercy, certainly those of us that were left when he finished. He thanked us stalwarts who'd stuck it out before walking off. We were either stunned or going mad cheering for more.
This was one of the loudest most viscerally and violently challenging sets I've heard in quite some time. Truly after all these years Martin Rev has few competitors in making the nastiest sounds you could wish to hear. An astonishing evening of dark twisted music.
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