The last time I viewed/reviewed
Bad For Lazarus, the jigsaw was fucked. Visually, the pieces were there, even if some of the bits kept sticking, like they were being forced into the wrong neighbour. Sonically, it was as though some pikey little so-and-so had got the jigsaw first and nicked all the edge bits that are supposed to frame the jigsaw.
Extended analogies aside: they looked impressive. They sounded weak.
No such nonsense this evening. For a start, they were buoyed up by two cortex-blistering bands. Just when you think you have seen Pifco play more times than you’ve actually seen your own hands, they come up trumps. Now with added Moz on keys, Pifco sound meatier than ever. Or Quorn-ier, whatever floats your boat. Oh, and Mary’s simultaneous drum ‘n’ keys playing gets cooler by the week, enticing jealous eyes from under all the boys’ fringes.
Add to that, a burst of murder from Blacklisters and Bad For Lazarus would have had to have pulled something seriously stinking out of the hat to bring down the mood of these Monday night free-gig shenanigans. Blacklisters, for the record, seem to be growing more and more monstrous by the gig. Only catching them every few months is kind of like realising your little baby nephew grew horns and developed three times your IQ score since the last time you saw him.
Bad For Lazarus seemed notably shifty when they took the stage – possibly unnerved by the preceding performers, almost definitely shaken by the fairly minor technical difficulties that they encountered (presumably more minor for a member of the audience, as we don’t have to prattle about trying to fix whatever’s fucked up). Looking like a rag-bag of post-punk subcultures and – this time – sounding suitably similar and suitably voluminous, Bad For Lazarus thrashed about en masse, somehow perfecting the pose : play ratio. The gunked up trash that had previously oozed wantonly from their amplifiers had crystallised into a different breed of trash: this time worthy of comparison to The Cramps or The Scientists. All we have to do now is pretend we didn’t witness the mildly cringe-inducing kit-trashing session at the end of the set [one of the band attempted to kick a drum over, missed the drum in question by a decent country mile, fell on his arse… Spinal Tap outtake, anyone?]…
Singer Rich Fownes’ previous band, Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster have wandered from the cradle and pretty much fallen off of my radar. I may as well start honing in on these guys.
Hayley Avron
