Thursday evening I trotted on down to The Brickyard at around 7pm to go see those angry English men otherwise known as the Sleaford Mods. But as gigs always go, it was not just those guys I saw; we also had Mark Wynn and Steve Ignorant (+ band) to entertain us.
So, in the interest of chronological order and making this review remotely readable—I'll start with Mark Wynn.
Explaining Mark Wynn is like trying to teach the rules of gravity to a dog armed only with a box of packaging foam and a Spanish-to-English phrase book; everything you say will make no feckin' sense.
At 7:30 prompt this scrawny man entered the stage with a small punnet of grapes, a mix-board and a domestic egg timer. He walked straight up to the microphone, spoke some very unrecognisable words then hit play on his mixer to start this funky tune of which he began bopping and reading poetry to.
If it wasn't already weird enough, his set just became more and more strange with the introduction of a range of marker pens, a tiara and incessant rambling of grapes and pineapple juice.
His poetry was a mixture of talking about his Grandma with the flu, mixed feeling of his sexuality at a young age and embodying a shouty woman who insisted on knowing "You pissed mate?" in an ear bleeding manor. And if his poetry and props weren't strange enough – his stage presence was like watching someone who is possessed by a devil in a mid LSD trip, shirtless, confused, scoffing a range of fruits.
After the whirlwind that was Mark Wynn we then necked back our drinks, and waited patiently for Steven Ignorant to grace the stage. After a few minutes, he walked right on, cued his band and started a merciless rant at modern British men and the state of our country; and it was fantastic.
His set was brilliant, his poetry was better and the best part was that his name has almost zero reflection on the person he really is.
Ignorant is the word furthest away from what I would describe the former member of Crass.
He was full of heart and heartbroken, he was angry and he was caring; the whole set was like being told the hardships of life by a werther's original in an leather jacket and a pork pie hat.
He was more brilliant than he was strange so I won't elaborate as I did, just employ a digital round-of-applause for this good man.
 |
| Photo courtesy of Chelsea Cannar |
After both really enjoyable sets, the majority of the male audience went for that 'just before the main act piss and pint' then we and all pushed to the front, waiting patiently to be shouted at by an angry man with a microphone. And we were not disappointed.
The set was once again, brilliant, they covered tracks from the new album, all the hits and made sure they could slur the worlds "CURRLIYLE" after every couple of songs. The lead singer (or poet) refused to face the crowd and threw his headmaster like frown towards the speakers, and it's quite good that he did. I don't think it affected the performance at all, and I assume full eye contact with said man would likely have the effect it would if you met Medusa in greek mythology.
It was relentless. There was never more than 5 seconds between songs, and never more than a minute between each curse word. I liked Sleaford Mods before this, and now I would put them right up in the top ten, because my goodness, my goodness.
 |
| Photo courtesy of Chelsea Cannar |
I can't say much else other than I really enjoyed it, because I've reached my quota of "brilliant"'s, used every single analogy I could think of. A great, yet confusing gig all round.
Thank you for coming to 'Currliyle' you angry, angry angry men!
0 comments:
Post a Comment