Music > Live Reviews

The Wildhearts & Those Damn Crows 10/9/21

The Adrian Flux Waterfront

12/09/21

Live music has been back for a few weeks now but, after the last 18 months, we all need a release. Who better to bring that release than The Wildhearts? 

First up, it is THOSE DAMN CROWS. I’ll come straight out with it. Theirs’ is a style of heavy rock that I just don’t get. It is all big riffs, squealing solos, thundering drums, flailing hair and histrionic vocals, a genre that has barely developed in decades. Look, TDC are great at what they do, it just leaves me absolutely cold. Maybe it is just that I was so looking forward to Beach Riot, the sexy fuzz poppers originally scheduled to open the show, but I just can’t get into it. Tonight, as the mass singalong to Rock ‘n’ Roll Ain’t Dead proves, I’m almost certainly alone in that.

THE WILDHEARTS are a whole different kettle of metal. From their earliest days when Ginger declared that he wanted them to sound like a cross between Metallica and Cheap Trick, they have combined metal, punk, power-pop and more to create a heavy, melodic and supremely catchy brew. Yes, like Those Damn Crows, The Wildhearts have their roots in the classic sounds of the past but the latter aren’t afraid to add contemporary twists to the mix. 

The set commences with CJ, Danny and Rich on stage in near darkness. Ginger starts playing off stage before bounding on and his comrades join him in Diagnosis. CJ is spinning like a whirling dervish, Ginger is bouncing around like a hyperactive puppy and the audience, well the audience are more than up for it. The energy levels barely drop as the band run through Vanilla Radio, Sick of Drugs, new track Remember These Days (including a medley of Turning American, Schizophonic, Girlfriend Clothes, If Life Is Like a Lovebank I Want an Overdraft and Splattermania), Caffeine Bomb, The Jackson Whites, Dislocated, Splitter, Let 'Em Go, Mazel Tov Cocktail and Caprice. Of course, there is an encore of Inglorious, Suckerpunch and I Wanna Go Where the People Go. 

Ginger said this was the best audience he’d ever had in Norwich. Having seen The Wildhearts a fair few times over the years, admittedly with a big gap between the 90s and the noughties, I’d say that this was the best show I’ve seen ’em play.