There’s a moment about halfway through Crobot’s set at KK’s Steel Mill when it all locks in. Brandon Yeagley – the singer with the giant voice, the cartoon-character charm, and the frontman who has carried this band’s spirit for more than a decade – steps up to deliver “Obsidian” from their most recent record.
And when that groove hits, you suddenly realise just what we’ve missed in the six years since they were last on these shores. My relationship with the Pennsylvanian riff merchants goes back to late 2014, when they sent me a review copy of the incredible “Something Supernatural.” It’s fitting, then, that they open tonight with the very first track from that album: “The Legend of the Spaceborne Killer.”
It remains tremendous. Yeagley is part rock star, part roaring bluesman, part Tasmanian Devil. Think Wolfmother, Audioslave, and pure animated mayhem rolled together. The man is phenomenal.
“Is it time we get funky?” he grins before “Weigh Me Down,” the dynamite funk-laced number that lets him close his eyes and sink into the groove. “Skull of Geronimo” follows, introduced with a promise to take us “back to the swamps,” and this is where he lifts his harmonica up like it’s something to be worshipped — not for the last time.
The early material like “Chupacabra” sits perfectly beside the new stuff. “Welcome to Fat City,” “Gasoline,” and “Alpha Dawg” swagger past with the confidence of a band who know exactly what they do better than anyone else. Requests get a look-in too – including “La Mano de Lucifer.”
There’s the brand-new single “Gun to My Head,” which he describes – perfectly – as “dirtier than a stripper’s pole,” and it absolutely reeks of that filth live. “Nowhere to Hide” is the one he pinpoints as “probably the moment you first heard of us,” and he’s bang on.
But they aren’t leaving without playing “Low Life,” the set-closing sing-along it was always destined to be.
And then comes the final freak-out – a wild, full-band blast that closes the night with a jolt of pure energy.
This is a new-look Crobot, with the Jansen brothers, Willie and Nico, locked in tight on bass and drums. Long-standing guitarist Chris Bishop (still kicking out riffs like nobody else can) joins Yeagley to complete a line-up that feels revitalised, heavier, funkier, hungrier.
Yeagley apologises more than once for not making it to the UK enough. He promises they’ll be back, and jokes he might even get sick of the sight of us. Impossible. You don’t get sick of a band like Crobot.
Because Crobot aren’t just a good band – they’re a force of nature. They always have been. They probably always will be. And few bands embody the spirit of rock ’n’ roll better than they still do.
