There are few quicker ways to guarantee a review on this website than prefacing a song with the words “fuck the King”. That is exactly what Birmingham’s Fergy LH do this evening. They had, though been interesting and before that, with their brand of garage rock if it was played by The Doors “We’ll Take It Day By Day “ is typical of what they do, but they are also keen to stretch themselves with new material. So it is that they play a song they only wrote three days ago and others that sound like unhinged punk rock. The band only played his first gig a year ago or so, but they are an interesting proposition and one certainly to look out for.
Fellow Brummies’ Gans are an altogether more aggressive affair. Thomas Rhodes might attack the guitar, but he’s got nothing on drummer Euan Woodman, who marches into the crowd for the raw “Talk Too Much” as if he will drag them kicking and screaming onto their side if he has to. There’s an ebullience, too. A youthful exuberance about “What You Mean” – and for a band that is very much at the start of things there is a lot of potential here. New single “Business” comes in with a near dance groove, and when a little later in the evening, Big Special’s Callum Moloney says: “you’ll all be standing here next year watching Gans”, he might have a point.
And speaking of Callum, I read an interview with him where he describes himself as a “drummer and hype man”. He lives up to both tonight.
This is a special show for big special for all sorts of reasons. Their biggest ever headline gig. And even more importantly perhaps the debut album is out at midnight. That’s important, because they play “Postindustrial Hometown Blues” from beginning to end here.
That in itself is a brave endeavour, given that self-evidently the crowd will not have heard all of these songs. I am in a lucky position that I have, I’ve already reviewed the record and proclaimed it to be one of the most interesting of the year.
Watching them play these tracks in a live setting is to watch them in the raw – literally. For, if Moloney is the heartbeat of big special, almost primal in the way he beats his kit, Then singer Joe Hicklin, almost defies description. His use of words is incredible and his poetry, both in the songs and in the spoken word pieces, is compelling.
Away from that, he possesses a superb deep Nick Cave type voice, and when it all comes together as on “Black Country Gothic”, it is a mighty thing.
“I Mock Joggers”, the working class bleakness of “Desperate Breakfast” the incredible vitriol of “Shithouse” – the one I proclaimed to be the best on the album – are wonderfully original pieces of music and prove the album is as good as I thought it was.
However, I may have been wrong on one aspect. You can’t listen to “This Here Ain’t Water” and not think it’s their shining gem. I guess it’s a little like reading the book after seeing the film, it alters perspective.
And they keep coming at you. Current single “Black Dog/White Horse” or “Broadcast: Time Away” , which they’ve only played twice before, while the quick fire anger of “Mongrel” takes on a new dimension here.
For “Trees” they both disappear into the crowd to meet their people, while the music has a sort of rave texture. Which is yet another thread to pull at, from this most hard of bands to categorise.
That would be the encore, if Big Special did them. They don’t, and actually rock star antics wouldn’t suit them. What they do instead, is another poem from Joe, who really is stunning, before “Dig!” and everyone does.
Callum had said, earlier in the show, but he’d been playing gigs in Birmingham for 16 years. Ever likely he looks so delighted, throughout all of what amounted to 1 long victory lap, for these long serving lads that are to be overnight sensations. Big Special are just that – that bit is easy, but they deserve more than glib. You can point to bands they sound a bit like, but you can’t point to one that they have copied. What amounted to the album release party, was a privilege to witness.
