From the off Yobs blast it out. They lie, telling the audience that they are quiet and well behaved and then they rip through 30 minutes of loud fuzzed up garage punk, a lot of alcohol and frequent audience invasions. They also include a quick reference to the Beastie Boys Right to Party. T
hey play rapid fire, scuzzy, guitar led songs that are propelled along by some truly manic and magnificent drums. The vocals are shouting at you from the bottom of a large dark cave, echoing and violent and the fuzzed up string instruments chop rhythms up into brutal shards. Yobs are refreshing, they don’t slow down or digress into different dynamics. Their set is always full throttle and they can leave you breathless.
There’s a buzz going through the crowd as Guitar Wolf get ready to come on. This band engender high levels of anticipation. Then they are on in all their comic book rock n roll glory and hell they are loud. Its a truly vicious take on rock n roll they have, part Ramones, part more Ramones but from when the Ramones visited Link Wray (yes, they do play Rumble).
They are never still, they know all the poses and the rock star mannerisms but they don’t fail to deliver around an hour of sharp aggressive back to basics RnR. They begin with a ritualistic chugging a can of beer in one go and then they are off. Its a celebration, a positive experience a coming together of rock n roll tribes. There’s so much going on musically and visually its hard to keep up.
There’s a lot of knowing about Guitar Wolf, they understand the game they are playing and a car crash version of Cochrane’s Summertime Blues shows off their ability to take the basic formula, amplify it, amplify it some more then throw it at the audience. I had a lot of fun watching these and I wasn’t alone. I’ve rarely seen so many smiles after a gig.
WORDS AND PHOTO CREDIT – RICHIE YATES
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