If you’re a local punk band called The Scumbags, you’d best be filthy and nasty – and while the three piece are both of those things, they have a fair dollop of melody too. Put it this way, their one cover is The Ramones’ “Slug”, ticking all the boxes.
Their tunes “Give A Fuck”, and “Love To See It” and the rest have a similar vibe, but there’s a pleasingly x-rated underbelly. “Germany” sees them move there to “sleep with all the sluts” and “Big T” is dedicated to their drug dealer.
“It Don’t Matter” from 2019 according to Spotify, proves they’ve always had the same ethos, and any band that finishes their set with “Never Going Back To Gornal” (you’d have to be from around here to understand) is just fine with me. Bostin’, as Noddy Holder might say.
“We are Motherfucking Face Up” screams their formidable singer, and in those five words, she underlines that they are an altogether different proposition from that which had gone before. Proper hardcore from the West Midlands, like GBH, and with none of the knockabout fun of the previous band.
Instead, a shit load of anger spews forth – and of course, if you aren’t angry in 2024 you’d have to question why.
“The Few” feels like catharsis, and ‘Savage State” is very much from the same cloth. They all are, in honesty, but the idea of “‘what do you want to rail against? ‘What have you got?'” Is never a bad one. “Warning System” is even more aggressive, and if the crowd was never really going to join in the singalong of “Stand Fight Live Die” then Face Up still tries. “The World Is Ours” is their anthem for us against them, and if it ends a set where most of the audience seemed a touch nonplussed, then in the right setting Face Up would be thrilling.
Never mind the songs for a second, CJ Wildheart says something in his set that might just explain it all.
“The older I get” he smiled (and CJ smiles a lot) “the more noise I want to make”.
With that, he launches I to “Butterfingers” from his recent “Split” album and his point is proved.
Not for Chris Jagdhar the idea of folk music, no, he’s straight in with “Kick Down The Walls” and it is just good to see him back on stage for the first time in over 18 months.
It should not be overlooked just how good – and extensive -l a career the artist (here with a three-piece band) has had, and most of it is represented- and all of it exceptionally.
The wonderful The Jellys are represented with “Lemonade Girl”, the even more wonderful Honeycrack get a couple of outings starting with “Go Away” and the band that gave him his surname, my favourite sees “Hit It On The Head” aired first.
But mostly this is about his solo career. So “The State Of Us” is punk-fueled vitriol, “All The Dough” focuses its anger elsewhere, “Fire The Battery” was only just recently released and “S.D.E” is another beauty from the “Split” album.
They’re on stage for around 70 minutes, and this is total DIY as they have no crew, just a collection of brilliant songs that need to be heard and haven’t been played live nearly enough.”All You Rude Boys” proves exactly why they should be.
He speaks about The Wildhearts saying that “it’s water under the bridge” and cleverly – and somewhat pointedly – he avoids the “hits” in favour of the ones he wrote like the seldom heard “Little Flower” and “OCD”.
It is another Honeycrack classic, “Sitting At Home” that steals the show, though. And it is all the proof you need that CJ didn’t need to be sat in the house, he needs to be on stage, playing in his particular style, which when you boil it down, is unlike anyone else’s.
“See you in ten years,” he says as he leaves the stage. Just think by then, if he’s as good as his word to keep getting noisier, by then he’ll be in a death metal band. I’m not sure the corpse paint would suit him, though.
