26/11/2010
Queercore screamo thrashpunk. Late arrivals have rarely been so extreme. I’m not talking about the headlining horses from Leeds nor openers Young Legionnaire who I’d missed, but New Yorkers Gay for Johnny Depp, who’s reputation for both anarchy and ambiguity precedes them tonight. Anyone here for a casual pint and some punk rock was in for a shock.
Gay For Johnny Depp are rooted in hardcore punk, but bend it’s bounds to breaking point by incorporating sounds that have earned them the labels mentioned at the start and many more. It’s really refreshing to actually see a band confuddle the categories people coin to repress them with.
With homoerotic lyricism, controversial banter and the confrontational presence of free reigning frontman Marty Leopard, Gay For Johnny Depp are definitely a challenging act to take on board, but that’s exactly what they’re tailor made to do.
Although as interesting as their grinning threats to unevolved attitudes and beliefs are, their songs individually aren’t as remarkable. Most of these have been and gone in under two minutes, squelching in screeching, hissing noise, any ironic message buried in the rubble of crumbled amplifiers. All of which is intentional of course. In it’s entirety though, as a performance, it’s insanely powerful and if nothing else highly entertaining, which is all you can ask of a support band, no?
Marty prowls and paces around the empty semi-circle at the front, searching for a crowd member to haul by the scruff of the neck into the middle whilst screaming into his microphone. Some are fearful of his unpredictable up-frontness, others give in and lend their vocal talents (tomorrow sore throats), but in the end it’s all a bit of fun.
“Stoke-on-Trent! The home of Slash and Robbie Williams!” he shouts. This then prompts a single-handed acapella take on ‘Angels‘. Truly spectacular seeing that nervous, unsure look across on a room full of people’s faces give way to a huge, unanimous chorus of “and through it all, she offers me protection, a lot of love and affection..” followed by a frontman cackling “what a bunch of fucking losers!” once he’d reeled us all in. No doubt everyone felt hard done by. Funny though how it took a queercore band to make that song less gay.
After half an hour of loudness and plenty of laughs we were left with another cover to remember them by, this time ‘Come On Feel the Boys‘ no less after which Pulled Apart By Horses were left to not let the momentum slip on their first trip to Stoke.
What Pulled Apart By Horses bring to the ‘Mill is very different from what we’d seen and heard from Gay For Johnny Depp, but they’re no less pledged to not allowing for one second to take your eyeballs off of them.
They are one of the purest live bands there are, having stolen the hearts of so many worldwide using only what happens on the stage. It just so happens this time around that they’ve an album under their belts that everyone has played the unholy hell out of in anticipation of their arrival.
It’s not an album track that let’s our eardrums know this night is far from over though, rather the iTunes bonus ‘E= MC Hammer‘ with it’s ticklish bass and chorus of “We reign the sabbath/we ride the mammoth” pleading it’s “what wasn’t I on the album case?”, which would still run shy of thirty minutes if included.
What’s great about PABH is how they can make thrillingly upbeat heavy music that you can dance and go nuts to without keeping in mind some weighty social-political commentary lying underneath the poppy punk rock exterior. I’d say ‘happy hardcore’ if it wasn’t already a techno compilation, but you get the idea.
In that very vein we’re introduced to the cheerfully raucous ‘The Crapsons‘ through to ‘Yeah Buddy‘, all the while lead screamer Tom Hudson and bassist Robert Lee pogo to and from stacks of speakers, spring into photo-opportunity aerodynamics and allow youngsters at the front to step in as backing singers.
Things pick up once again mid-set when they unleash a roll of receipts into the crowd, in an attempt to redecorate the venue that ends looking like someone TP’d a room full of hipsters and scene kids. Needless to say I’d still rather have had wallpaper than full pints and piss lashed about.
A finale of high fives, swan dives, nose dives and punching lions in their throats sets up one last blast of vomit and dismemberment-drenched eat-you-alive punk rock in the form of ‘Den Horn‘, putting the balcony to good use as Hudson scampers his way up strained by his amp lead almost causing him to fall.
Is there a better way to end such a gig than in panic for the sake of the frontman’s life? I don’t think so. It mightn’t have been the most involved audience both bands have ever played to but their own very individual performance couldn’t be faulted. Neither a riot nor a rave but still enough evidence of these bands being about a very real, intense display over anything their recorded material could ever capture.
(Daniel Robinson)