The Sunshine Underground @ Escobar (Wakefield)
By Lauren Strain
Well, today was a wonderful day. Vinyl was bought, satisfying and exhilarating decision was made to quit godawful job, gig was attended. The latter of these three activities went on to demonstrate that The Sunshine Underground are, officially, the best thing since a Terry's Chocolate Orange replaced an actual satsuma in my Christmas stocking. They're also likely to remain The Very Best Thing for a Very Long Time. So bewilderingly immense were they, I might add, that your insomniac correspondent here is writing two separate, gushing reviews of their bash-attack on the Escobar this evening. Am I impressed? Holy squirrel, I'm trodden down into the pavement under the colossal stamp of sheer, manic brilliance these boys possess. Ouch.
After the noise-pool conjurings of Harry's Hotel and the sharp, stripy hooks and hummable organs of The Cakes, on trundle tonight's main attraction. Impossibly tight, they smack their guitars with vein-popping hands, with such blurry ferocity and speed that I begin to wonder whether they're all hyperactive robots gone on the rampage who've each been plugged into short-circuiting sockets, naked fuses spitting electric shocks up through their legs, their limbs spinning with a surge of apocalyptic power. Craig's wrist in particular seems to be estranged from the rest of him, controlled by some poltergeist or other, his clenched hand hitting the strings as though his reflexes were being stretched and torn on the rack.
'Put You In Your Place' somehow manages to be the weakest point of the set - this isn't to say that it's not still a fantastic, exploding firecracker of showering gunpowder, mind; it's just that, when each assault betters the previous one, everything gets very overpowering. There's Mr. Wellington hurling his piping-hot, hyena's vocal chords at the roof during what I think might be called 'Bodies' (no promises), the elongated howls of the chorus scorching the ceiling; you can almost smell the acrid ash dripping down on our buzzing heads. From the spicy, searing guitars of 'Commercial Breakdown' to the floor-ripping, house-wrecking, rhythm-ravaging closing screams of "And you know what you want but you don't know how to get iiiiiiiiiiiiiaaaaghhhhhttttt...", The Sunshine Underground are a white-hot iron stampede of a riot, an unbelievably snappy, wired band with a fire-breathing, flame-throwing (metaphorically-speaking, that is) frontman.
Vatican Jet? Anti-climax. Not that anyone could now succeed in being much else, really. What a jolly good start to August!
