Music > Live Reviews
FAINTEST IDEA, NOSEBLEED & CASUAL NAUSEA
The Adrian Flux Waterfront
23/12/18
It is the Saturday before Christmas and, after 60+ gigs/festivals featuring more than 200 sets by over 180 bands/artists, this is almost certainly my last gig of the year. With gig fatigue setting in, how will it rank?
First up are East Anglian street punks CASUAL NAUSEA. Now, I don’t know much about this lot. What little I have found on social media didn’t impress but by heck they nail it live. My mate describes ‘em as the Levellers meeting Cro-Mags down the pub. I don’t agree and think their sound takes in early Crass, Paranoid Visions and Subhumans, with maybe a touch of Half Man Half Biscuit in some of the guitar lines. Simon spends most of the set stomping around the dance floor. He and co-lead vocalists Zoe and guitarist Ed lead the band through a set that is strangely danceable, with strong melodies and some gloriously ragged shoutalongs about voting, shit jobs and being DIY or dying.
Now for the main reason I am here. Leeds trio NOSEBLEED’s “Scratching Circles On The Dance Floor” is one of my LPs of 2018 and I am desperate to see them live. Maybe too desperate because I am - at least initially - disappointed. The sound is just too loud and muddy. A couple of songs in though and all doubts are gone. The live show is, if anything, even better than that LP. On record, to me at least, the band come across as old school Rock ‘n’ Roll colliding with maximum R ‘n’ B, almost like a rocket propelled Who playing Gene Vincent. Live, it is something else again. Those influences are there but given (even) more punk intensity and psychobilly energy. Despite vocalist/guitarist Elliott and bassist/vocalist Ben moving their mic stands on to the dance floor early on and spending the rest of the set playing in the audience - so they don’t get any benefit from the on-stage monitors - along with outstanding drummer Dicky Riddims, they might just be one of the tightest and most exciting bands that I have seen for a long time.
How on earth can FAINTEST IDEA top that? In all honesty, they can’t. Despite being a little overshadowed by Nosebleed, Faintest Idea do deliver a cracker of a set. Bassist/vocalist Dani is a stronger, more varied singer live than in the studio and is an engaging frontman. Stage left, Jack lays down some searing lead lines and choppy, ska riffs. Lil Dan may have the name of the latest SoundCloud rapper to hit the news for all the wrong reasons but plays the sax in a way that helps me overcome my unreasonable phobia of his instrument. Trombonist Bobble is a seemingly irrepressible ball of energy. Drummer Jack holds it all together with hard, heavy yet loose and funky rhythms. It seems that trumpeter Sara may have left the band since I saw ’em last but she’s to be found in the audience, singing along.
On almost any other night, with almost any other support act, I’d be raving about just how brilliant Faintest Idea’s ska-punk-hardcore is. As it is, all I can do is witter on about Nosebleed.
And a final note. Revenge of the Psychotronic Man called it quits last weekend with a farewell show in Manchester that featured all three of these bands. Tonight, we get Nosebleed covering Look at Me, I’m A Fucking Tigerand whilst Faintest Idea take on Drinking In The Van in fitting tribute to one of the best bands to come out of the DIY punk scene. Nice one. Revenge might be gone but the label and festival they founded - TNSrecords and the Manchester Punk Festival - live on and tonight’s three bands all display the attitude that made Revenge so great.