The Beat Surrender

I am officially old …. COCK !!

I’ve been denying this to myself for years … I mean, come on, I’m 30 and been looking forward to seeing Hadouken! for months (especially after my first live taste at Leeds festival) which makes me street, yeah ?! BUT, after just 10 minutes at Leeds Met on saturday night the epiphany finally arrived. Not only was I oldest person there (except the 50 something year old parents chaperoning their very embarrassed 14 year old son), with the least amount of hair and a coat that I bought when most of the crowd were still believing in Santa, but, it was the things I saw, very strange to me, accepted as normal to everyone else.

There was day-glo face war paint, lots of it, loads of mini-Hadouokens’ milling about, glowsticks that Luke Skywalker would have been proud of, aggressive moshpits – at a rave !!, a belt on a girl that had a LED panel at the front with the word CROTCH running across it, a dancing half-naked man in a mad cow mask with his nipples taped over criss-cross and best of all (??), a 3 girl amateur dramatic dance troupe … (I lie, the cow man was by far the funniest).

Right then, my girlfriend wasn’t exactly looking forward to this one, so I compromised and we arrived later than normal, missing Shut Your Eyes And You’ll Burst Into Flames (gutted ‘cos I didn’t know they were playing) and catching Ghost Frequency half way through. Not my cup of tea I’m afraid boys, there was an American youth rock feel, laid over drum + bass, punctuated with heavy screams (I’ve just read that back and I AM old). There was a bit of Faith No More in the guitars, though this wasn’t enough to save them and when the lead singer threatened “to find and stab in the leg the owner of this shoe” that had just been thrown on to stage, we decided to retreat to the bar.

And this was when we walked past the three girls, bang in the middle of the bar, performing what could only be a choreographed routine which was a cross between THAT Fat Boy Slim video and a feature on the SKY Arts channel, swarmingly weird !! Like I say though, no-one else batted an eye-lid.

So, pint later and back in we go and the crowd are as up for it as I’ve seen in this place, they’re jumping and moving before the band hit the stage and when they do, and the lights come on, EVERYONE bounces together. Stood at the side looking down, I can only smile at the sea of glow sticks and colour that fill the room, bridled with raw enthusiasm (similar to when Sunshine Underground played here a few months back but just more so). It all really took me back 15 years to my drug-fuelled all-nighters in Leeds, the difference, everyone here is part of one big mass rather than having their own space to dance in and by the look of everyone’s eyes at the end of the night, no-one is on drugs.

The ‘grime’ tag that Hadouken! supposedly fit into is a difficult one to describe, much easier to experience. They hit you with driving guitars, bleeping keyboards and frenetic lyrics that build and drive you. It’s all tinged with a warmth, love and sense of belonging that draws everyone together as they smile, sing and punch their arms in time (this point being amplified when lead man James declared that despite his funny accent, the bands’ roots were firmly in Leeds). The room is full of the kind of dancing you’d normally only get away with in your bedroom, nobody cares, the crowd and the band are just a load of kids in t-shirts but they’re all loving it and they all understand exactly what James is talking about (a feat, considering how fast he says it).

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