Last Wednesday evening Newtown’s Vanguard, against precedent, put away its dinner-and-a-show tables and threw open its velvet-lined interior to some loud brat-rock. As Mikey from Sleep Debt said to the crowd early on: “The Vanguard is a pretty shmick venue so we’re all under duress”. It was a good thing that Mikey’s claim was unsubstantiated as drink-spraying, piggy-backing, general horseplay and walking on the bar went completely unpunished by the venue.
Darlington party boyz Sleep Debt opened up – they remind this “journalist” of updated Superchunk – a singer with a pleading, abrasive voice and a band playing everything top speed. They played well enough indeed to drag the smokers in from the street for a listen. And they pleasingly knocked out the catchy “Animalia” with multiple false endings to round out their set. Some minds (mine and my brother’s) are divided on whether it’s better to catch Sleep Debt on a night when there’s no-one in the audience – for looseness and give-a-fuck-ness sakes – but for mine tonight it could def have be better if singer Dan just loosened up his shoulders a bit – without losing his precision fret-work of course.
And as for the challengingly named Halal, How Are You? – they were remarkable. And pretty fucking funny. The kids there adored them….so what if three quarters of these were their mates? Everyone knows your mates are your harshest critics. Audience participation was the rule as members of the audience/mates variously tackled, worshipped, wrestled and borrowed the mic from the singer to shout “fuck”. They had an ace guitarist and a tidy combo all round – authentic or something – and a singer who spent all of 10sec on the actual stage the entire show.
“Can I get less Zacc in the foldback?” asked the bass player.
“Less of my voice and more of my skin” answered the shirtless Zacc. And so the tones continued from there. He seems, judging from his gaze, a man not entirely sure what he’s going to say between songs or do during them – but this band, for a change, doesn’t seem to rely on drunkeness for spontaneity. His M.O. during songs was to keep shouting, keep patrolling from the stage to the back of the room, fall down, get up, climb on something, generate some feedback and to keep talking in between. A singer with limited ability – he sounds a bit like a more shouty Tom Waits – and when he comes and shouts near you – as he surely did for each audience member at least 5 times during the hour long set – you can appreciate the effort of the continuous spectacle he’s making of himself. And also you can hear the lyrics better, which was a good thing.