The Beat Surrender

We’re about 2/3rds of the way through the Bromheads Jacket set. “Get on with it you motherfucker” mutters the slightly wild-eyed, hot and sweaty lad at the front, “Come on you motherfuckers” comes louder from the same mouth, as frontman Tim finishes his little story, then BANG, we’re back into it again, madness.

Only thing is, the lad at the front is me, I’ve been kicked in the head at least a dozen times, felt my back pop when I caught that “bigger than me” stage diver, and my left elbow definitely went, when the crowd went to the right and whoever had hold of my arm went left. BUT, do I care? Hell no! I’m hyped, giddy, pretty manic, singing every word I know and am pretty sure I don’t ever really want to leave this moshpit (in my 30’s now as well … happy old man).

Now I know that the front of the 40 strong moshpit isn’t the best place from which to conduct a review but having stood much further back for the start, it became too much and after handing my glasses for safe keeping, I piled forward.

Let’s rewind a bit.

A couple of hours earlier, i’ve had a few bevvies and having seen (and immediately loved) Bromheads for the first time, just over a year ago, i’m pretty excited and in far too chatty a mood to finish off the curry I was making for tea, so instead, me + Glenn escape the Bradford border controls and head Leeds way.

We arrive just in time to see International Status start their set and this punky effort, under-tinged (is that a word??) with 80’s electro is a delight and includes the line “I’m not Bruce Lee/Ice-T, but I could be”, over and over which makes me smile. Unfortunately, they are a massive disappointment after and we quickly disperse to the bar.

Next up are The Damn Shames – whom I’ve heard of, but never heard – and they’re very good, well, at least the first 4 songs are. The last 3, again, die. There was an initial quick tempo’d, tight number from the 3 piece who rather bizarrely had no drummer, though this never detracted form the overall sound, which was enhanced by the front two guys’ ability to swap lead vocals. Then came a touch of the Young Knives, but SO much better, and we even hear early-90’s enhanced rifts and sounds (which made me think, briefly, of the Sisters of Mercy) through the next two. From here is where it seemed to go wrong and they tapered off into a tedious ending, shame, but not bad enough to forget the first half. You’ll have to nip along to judge for yourselves.

Another pint and a bizarre conversation about circumcision and the adverse effects of recreational drugs on love length (not sure why i’ve included that), and we’re back in.

They kick off with Lesley Parlafitt and they sound good, Tim’s had his hair done and seems to have been made aware of dermatology since I last saw them. The band, for those who don’t know, represent a fast-paced Northern social comment (although Tim has this fetish about having to rhyme every-bloody-thing, which can sometimes be-lie how clever his lyrics sometimes are), they’ve been touted as the next big thing from Sheffield and their recently released first album (Dits from the Commuter Belt) is evidently selling pretty well.

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