partz 2:two

At the end of Sunday’s race, James Allen (who, for the record, is one of the best motorsport commentators ever) said that winning Monaco was like winning half a World Championship. By the same token, seeing Dead Kenndeys without Jello Biafra is like F1 without Monaco on the calendar, or any race for that matter.

Gary and I met at the same boozer as we had on the previous evening, had a pair of pints as before, jumped on the tube like last time and alighted one stop sooner at Camden. We nipped into The Worlds End for a pre gig pint feeling all excited and what have you and talked about the gig we’d enjoyed the night before. It was still light by the time we arrived outside The Electric Ballroom and on entering it was evident that the unpredictably dangerous audience were starkly un-represented, indeed, a vast proportion of the audience were female and half the blokes looked as if they were on day release from the urology unit. I’ve been to more aggressive farmers markets quite honestly.

The first half of the gig was so disappointing I was thinking about fucking off back to the pub. The replacement singer is fucking awful, whilst he sounds a little bit like his vastly superior predecessor he’s got nothing in the way of that rawness, that dead-eyed rage that made DK such a formidable outfit. His in between song banter was blasphemy… then suddenly there was a surge in sound and it picked up, they played one of my favourites (Moon over Marin, a song I was convinced I’d never hear live, before going stright into Nazi Punks Fuck Off) and kicked off into all their classics. Whilst the singer may have been a berk that liquid bass and chiming guitar sound is still 100%, fuck it, I thought, just ignore him and watch Klaus and East Bay…From then on in I was right in there.

The mistake DK made is choosing a lead singer who’s a ‘bit’ like Jello. They need someone who isn’t like Jello but commands that malevolent presence on stage, a similar note of discordant passion; a violent hatred for what isn’t just, that dysfunction, that fucking voice that can tear ones insides out and flap them about like cotton rag blowing on barbed wire so help me jesus christ.

So it comes to a close, my 2-day mini music festival of all things punk and metal. It’s been great but even I must rest. I intend to have a clean day and night before the weekend opens its sideboard of possible delights. In the meantime I’ll leave you with one more DK song. I’ve had this band feature on Piqued than any other popular music outfit. Why? I hear you all scream… Why? Because I care…