SEPULTURA, RAGING SPEEDHORN & CAGE FIGHT
As I walk to the Waterfront (after a very tasty burger at Last Pub Standing), I can hear Elton John playing at Carrow Road. Much as I love “Saturday Night’s Alright…”, I know where I would much rather be tonight and it isn’t spending 100 notes to see the former Reg Dwight on a(nother) farewell tour.
Featuring Rachel Aspe (ex-Eths) on vox, TesseracT’s guitarist James Monteith, Jon Reid on bass and drummer Nick Plews, CAGE FIGHT is a new name to me. For the most part, the music is an intense, high-speed collision between 80s UK hardcore, old school thrash metal and a touch of grindcore. Think Napalm Death-meets-Kreator and you won’t be far off. This isn’t flash, technical playing, just a brutal, genuinely soul-cleansing racket and Aspe’s throat shredding grunts, growls and howls are almost unbelievable. I want more.
Corby’s RAGING SPEEDHORN have been going for the best part of a quarter of a century but have somehow passed me by. Original members Frank Regan and Gordon Morison (vocals and drums respectively) are joined by guitarists James Palmer and Dave Leese, co-vocalist Daniel Cook and Andy Gilmour. Regan and Cook almost fall into the audience as they spit the lyrics. This isn’t quite as intense as Cage Fight but it comes close and there’s an unexpected groove beneath the riffage.
As with many bands that have had line-up changes, I had heard some rumblings before tonight about this not really being SEPULTURA because neither Max Cavalera nor his brother Igor are still in the band. What cobblers. Bassist Paulo Jr has been with the band since the very earliest days. Guitarist Andreas Kisser joined in 1987. Vocalist Derrick Green was recruited in 1998 and has been with the band for double the length of time that Max managed. Even “new boy” Eloy Casagrande has been banging the drums for over a decade. This line-up still has the savagery that was a hallmark of Sepultura’s early years but adds almost jazz-level technical brilliance. Casagrandes’ drumming verges on the superhuman and the guitar/bass interplay is, at times, properly post-punk-no wave-art-noise-rock. Green is a superb frontman and has the audience in the palm of his hand.
I completely understand why some (most?) won’t get these bands and will say that they are just noise but it is a glorious, cathartic noise. All three bands induce manic mosh pits that at times stretch from stage to sound desk along. There’s a few crowd surfers too (and a big shout to the security for dealing with the surfers properly and with respect).
The audience response to Cage Fight is probably the best that I have seen for an opening act here and it ramps up for Raging Speedhorn and Sepultura. But the very best thing was just how many happy faces there were. Angry, intense and heavy - very heavy – as the music was, this is one of the friendliest crowds that I have been in for a long time. There is none of the chin stroking, very little of the scowling and none of the senseless macho aggression that can creep into extreme music events. Complete strangers, including an 18 year old lad at his first gig, even came up to me - me, with my “looking intensely angry even when ecstatically happy” face! – outside to talk about it. Jeez, I was not expecting that at all.
What. A. Night.
