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With Black Wire pulling out 3 months ago and Havana Guns pulling out 3 days ago, the line-up had a bit of a change and an extra band on. But their bland pub-rock has since been erased from my mind. Nick Theodore followed, a kind of Bright Eyes-esque emo acoustic thing. Not really what I'd go for normally but man can this guy play! It was a shame that one of the next two bands had left their snare on near the stage and constantly vibrated whenever he got loud (note to the promoters: turn off snares during acoustic sets!) He hushed the audience into a confident display of finger-picking guitar parts and melodic vocal lines. Possibly taking a few influences/chord changes from Biffy Clyro on the way.
Then, just to destroy the whole 'aww' feeling Nick had created, Men Of Unitus completely destroyed the place. Pints, punches, glass were thrown and, obviously, I've come to expect a bit of blood too from the Hertfordshire rockers. These guys are monsters. Seriously. Sykes is a fucking madman. He is definitely from some under-developed horror film that was in its developing stages in the 1980s before being abandoned because of the director throwing an actress into a room full of chicken claws and many allegations of rape made against him. I mean put a picture of Sykes here. Right here.
Now:- Imagine him with an axe.
It's disturbingly easy to do. He's going to kill me. I swear. He'll kill me, you, his band members and then rub his foot-blood into our hair. Well, he did that to me anyway.
What always strikes me is how incredibly tight they are. It's just perfection, you get a solid band of musicians punching out riffs from their guitars, a man who is possibly on parole (not in a pussy Pete Doherty way, either - Sykes is a murderer. There's no real evidence for it, but he is a murderer), a drummer who provides the solid intensity that allows the band to freeflow their riffs and a bassist with a slight-mullet. Well, no band is perfect, but a few come close and honestly, this has to be the best band on our local circuit. If you think your pop-punk gigs have great crowd participation, wait till you see Sykes throw a pint glass to the ground after downing it, take off his shoe, swing round, release it into one of my friend's backs, jump on the remnants of the pint glass, remove his sock, stamp on it, walk about with a mic stand, throw a p.a. speaker, grab your whole body, throw you to the ground, rub his hand in his bloody foot, and then rub his hand in your hair.
Maybe I'm sick, but I actually really enjoyed it.
...Don't judge me.
Craig Sharp
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