The month of April, and a week of annual leave, got off to a remarkable start gigs wise. What with a double header from The Fabulous Courettes on the Monday, including the most unusual venue for a gig I’ve ever been to, in the chapel in Barlinnie Prison, and the second with Three n Eights in tow, closely followed by the return of His Lordship to Glasgow after a triumphant slaying of the McChuills crowd last year. Two of the best live bands on the go just now, back to back, what more could a body ask for?
I’ll tell you what more a body could ask for. A support band as jaw droppingly good as Bruno & the Outrageous Methods of Presentation. If it wasn’t for Ged Babey bringing the band to my attention on the day of the gig, I could honestly say I had no knowledge of them whatsoever. I didn’t have a chance to investigate before the gig, and to be honest, I think that fact added to the overall effect Bruno and Co. had on me. It has to be said, I don’t think I was alone, glancing at those around me (I say glancing, it was hard to tear my eyes and ears from the spectacle unfolding in front of me), there were many in the same boat. The sheer visceral energy displayed by the young, and I mean young, frontman was palpable. I was shattered by the time the band finished and I’d pretty much only been rooted to one spot for the entirety of the set, jaw agape and utterly enthralled by the whole spectacle. I’m too young to have been there (just) but I imagine experiencing some of what was transpiring on the Stereo stage must have been what it felt like experiencing early punk gigs in the 70s.
With a vocal that channelled the likes of Patrick Fitzgerald and Peter Perrett, atop blistering melodic punk rock riffs played to within an inch of their lives by the absolutely note perfect and solid unit of band, all eyes were on the 17 year old, that’s right 17 – a fact even more remarkable when you see the wealth of content on Bandcamp – frontman Bruno. Things took an even more exceptional twist when his guitar/amp/cable gave out towards the end of the set, a lesser individual may have stopped, but not so Bruno, who kept singing regardless as the band tried to rectify the issue, before he leapt into the front rows of the stunned crowd and rolled about in a compelling display of frenzied youthful exuberance. I say the stunned front rows, for a second the band looked as surprised as us, before their professionalism and skilled musicianship took over, they abandoned trying to fix his guitar issues, and kept the music going to the end. How on Earth is anyone supposed to follow that?
Thankfully, we are talking about His Lordship here, one of the few bands whose energy could match that of the support act, and having seen the frenetic fireball of a live show the band are capable of, I was in no doubt they could take the challenge in their stride.
There was a theme tonight, with James Walborne experiencing guitar to amp issues (don’t buy cheap cables was his advice), but like Bruno before him, Walborne took this in his stride, not slowing down one iota as the band rattled through their corybantic set as if their lives depended on it. His Lordship play Incendiary rock n roll at its finest, the band were certainly All Cranked Up, and finding a release on the Stereo stage, unleashed their deliriously intoxicating depraved three headed rock beast like a wild animal upon us. I’m sure they don’t have blood running through their veins, more like pure high octane liquid hydrogen rocket fuel. New single, the foot to the floor hyper rocker Buzzkill, created a furious sense of hysterical agitation and sat shoulder to shoulder with the likes of I Live in the City and Jackie Works for the NHS (with the obligatory “Fuck the Tories” of course) for sheer nitrous fuelled rock n fucking roll.
The effervescent trio only brought the pace down a couple of times, allowing a couple of opportunities to take a breath between bouts of raucous intensity. I’m sure there couldn’t have been a dry in the house when the band played their skyscraping and poignant version of Sleepwalk in tribute to Taylor Hawkins and Jerry Lee, this was certainly one of the high points in the set, alongside another of their slower tracks, The Repenter, which on this occasion was toweringly stupendous, ridiculously good and powerfully potent in its ferocity. But how can you really pick highlights from a set which included their attempt to out-Cramps The Cramps with their cover of The Way I Walk, and just when you thought things couldn’t get any more tumultuous, Cat Walk unsheathes it’s claws and rips the flesh from your face. I would be lying if I said their set closer I Am in Amsterdam came as a relief, it was over all too soon to be honest, and I could have handled more of a pummelling of the senses, but there is no doubt that I was physically and emotionally exhausted as the band left the stage after their provocative rabble rousing set. One of His Lordship’s t-shirts bears the legend, “rock n roll is not for everyone”, on tonight’s showing it’s certainly not for the faint hearted…
Bruno and the Outrageous Methods of Presentation