Trust us, there are gigs, and there are shows; this was a rock n' roll show among the best of them!
It’s Saturday night, the heatwave is over (for a few days, at least) and it seems that London is ready to come out and dance again. There are plenty of gigs happening tonight, including a fair few rock n’ roll ones, but we rest assured that we’ve made the right choice with a bill of this quality – Botox, WitchDoktors and The Darts – at one of the few remaining great central London venues. Cheers to promoter Shake Some Acton for delivering the goods, and belated congratulations on passing the 100-gig mark!
Botox vocalist Tommy has a whole lotta Jagger to him, and we’re unable to take our eyes off his preening, pouting presence. Is he trying to throttle, embrace or – indeed – make love to his mic stand? One minute, he’s jumping around in the crowd; the next, he’s entangled himself in cables, and you get the feeling he and his band would stop at nothing to deliver such an electrifying set of punk rock.
Punktuation Editor Ruth caught Tommy for a quick chat after their set – he assures us that there’s an album in the works, for which he recorded the vocals in a toilet (acoustics!) – in the meantime, check out Botox’s demo on Bandcamp. This band is a fun, laid back project for its members, all of whom are playing different instuments than their usual.. we’re blown away to learn he’d gone from playing bass to taking on lead vocals; he comes across as a born frontman!
The likes of ‘Ignorance is Bliss’ and ‘I Wanna See Your Corpse’ (!) are prime pogo fuel, replete with buzzsaw, Ramones-esque guitars and the kind of deceptively simple melodies that linger long in the mind. This is OUR kind of Botox – the one that makes you move, and if it doesn’t do the same for you, you really ought to question whether this punk rock lark is for you after all. How’s anyone gonna top this?
“Have you got your dancing shoes on?” That’s WitchDoktors singer/guitarist Andy, shortly before a suitably groovy ‘No Pain No Gain’ makes us want to shake our arses like no-one’s watching. Taking influences from punk, rock n’ roll, rockabilly and even a touch of wonderfully dark country (‘Black Sack’), the veteran London quartet are on blistering form tonight, coming across rather like a British Social Distortion on ‘Voodoo Eye’ and delivering ‘Spanner In The Works’ with the energy and panache of a band half their ages.
How have I not seen these guys before? You wouldn’t guess that Marty Love (of Johnny Moped & Wingmen) is just filling on drums, so well does he clearly know their set, and there’s plenty of good natured, grin-worthy piss-taking between band and crowd; they’re clearly among friends, and WitchDoktors thoroughly deserve any new ones (including yours truly) they gain tonight. A closing cover of The Damned classic ‘Neat Neat Neat’ is truly the icing on the cake, and we can hardly wait for their newly recorded album and return to the road later this year.
On a night not exactly lacking in showmanship, The Darts vocalist/organ player Nicole has to take the gold medal for her antics with her instrument. When she’s not rocking it back and forth, she’s climbing on top of it or lying underneath it – and all whilst not missing a note! Ma’am, we nervously salute you. The band formed nearly a decade ago with the goal of making ‘great all-girl garage-rock noise”, and that’s exactly what we get tonight, with plenty of gloriously twangy surf guitar on ‘Liar’ and ‘Pour Another’ (the latter possibly THE definitive garage-rock ode to drinking).
There’s a new album on the way, and the handful of new songs – including ‘Apocalypse’ and ‘Up In My Soul’ – bode very well for it indeed. Again, there’s the sense that this is a band that lives to play live, and whether getting their sound engineer onstage to lead us through a dance routine for newie ‘Midnight Creep’ or making us run on the spot for ‘No Love’ (their “gym song”, apparently), there’s never a hint of a dull moment.
Overall, an evening that no one present will forget in a hurry, and why on earth would we want to? Check out details for future Shake Some Acton gigs on the links below; you can thank us – and, more importantly, Mannie – later!
Main Photo Credit All Photos: PETER MCDONNELL
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I spend my days teaching English to foreign students, and my evenings attending as many gigs as possible. Raised mainly on a diet of 90s third-wave punk, my tastes have grown to include just about anything from trad ska to thrash metal. The Ramones are my musical gods.
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