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Fucked Up - Sheffield Corporation - 17th November 2008
Support: SSS, Let's Wrestle
The first thing that strikes you when wandering through the labyrinth of rooms that make up the Corporation, is that Fucked Up frontman Damian is wandering around too. Despite his formidable appearance, he seems happy to chat to any fans who approach him, although he’s clearly more interested in getting a feel for the venue than taking part in a meet and greet session.
Damian makes another pre-show appearance, this time lounging against the barricades during opening act SSS’s set. He keeps a low profile, head banging and occasionally picking at an air guitar, but doing nothing to distract attention away from SSS.
Anyone who got to the gig early, can’t have failed to notice Damian’s just-an-ordinary-guy-at-a-gig attitude, and his genuine enthusiasm for SSS’s music. Consequently, Damian is off to a good start with the crowd, even before his band have taken to the stage.
It’s easy to see why SSS are supporting Fucked Up: their raucous, cyberpunk-flavoured hardcore racket isn’t a million miles away from tonight’s headliners. However, they lack the melodic undertones that ensure Fucked Up will always lure in those who’d normally give hardcore a wide berth. If hardcore all sounds the same to you, you should still give Fucked Up a go, but being a hardcore fan is a definite requisite for liking SSS.
SSS frontman Neal is an energetic and passionate performer, stalking back and forth behind the barricades for the entirety of the set. However, in a venue this size, his angry performance is actually quite intimidating, and there’s the definite sense that Neal is spoiling for a fight. He’s easily a contender for The Most Miserable Man of The Year award, with his ugly, crowd-alienating rants. “Those students who stand around the street, trying to get me to sign up to some charity,” he spits. “Don’t ask me to help, don’t speak to me, don’t even look at me.” And later: “vegetarians, vegans, charity-workers, eco warriors, aid workers, I don’t care, burn everything, use everything up, eat everything.” Quite. This sort of ranting might have earned him a few cheers from a larger audience, but when he’s screaming this at a crowd who barely stretch into double fingers, it feels like a personal attack, and earns him only silence.
You have to feel sorry for follow-up act Let’s Wrestle. Their electronic-indie tinkering and shoe-gazing, no-frills performance, sees most of the crowd gradually drift away. Let’s Wrestle are by no means a bad act, but they have absolutely nothing in common with the headliners, and fail to make any friends in the audience as a result. They wrap up their set in front of a greatly diminished crowd, and shuffle apologetically offstage. Tonight was just not their night.
And then it’s time for Fucked Up. Damian manages to remain onstage with his bandmates for approximately three seconds before he jumps into the crowd, and never returns to the stage. He spends most of Fucked Up’s set seizing startled gig-goers and thrusting his microphone at them so they can scream along.
Not content with just harassing those in the pit, he pops next door mid-song, taking the microphone with him so his voice is still booming, disembodied, over the PA system. Thus, we get the downright odd sight of a furious circle-pit, a stage full of band members, but no frontman. He’s nipped next door for a pint, and returns a few minutes later, microphone in one hand, beer in the other. Everyone promptly turns their backs to the stage to watch Damian running riot in the back rows. Anyone who thought lurking at the back of the venue would mean they’d escape a ribbing from Damian, is sadly mistaken.
Damian soon finds another way to create mayhem, as he spots a staircase at the side of the venue, which presumably leads up to a store room. He promptly disappears up it. Cue a few worried looking security guards, and another few minutes where tonight’s main attraction is in a completely different room from the audience. Musically, Fucked Up are fast, noisy and ferocious, churning out hardcore epics that often stretch past the five minute mark. Remarkably, Fucked Up’s blasts of punk-meets-hardcore unpleasantness are actually damn catchy, with melodic undercurrents and shout-along choruses aplenty (‘Crusade’ in particular is a stroke of call-and-response genius, which you haven’t really experienced, until you’ve experienced live.)
“That’s it,” Damian suddenly announces, slinging down his microphone and wandering off to the bar. The show’s over, and Fucked Up trail offstage with less fanfare than a band playing down your local. With Fucked Up there’s no glamour or pandering to the crowd, just a bald, beer-bellied, shirt-less man steam-rollering his way around the venue, grunting and bellowing and harassing anyone foolish enough to get too close. Fucked Up are never going to get any bigger than they are now but, watching them you can’t help but feel this is what rock music is all about.
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