Titus Andronicus, London CAMP

Titus Andronicus

May 25, 2010

I’m actually witnessing a crowd of people visibly enjoying themselves at a gig in Shoreditch.

Shuh-Hit you not: It’s real.  Maybe stuff like this goes on all the time, it’s just you have to travel southwest of the roundabout to find it.  Anyway, The CAMP’s a funny old space – Downstairs is very Tins-Of-Strongbow, upstairs is a bit Bottles-Of-Bulmers. 

We slope into the former just as Colours take the stage.  It takes me ten minutes to decide that I rather dig this, the same amount of time to realise who the lead singer reminds me of: John Challis – a young  John Challis torturing a Telecaster while his cohorts weave a delicious bloody-great disgusting shimmery curtain of Frrrrrannnnnnnng.  Colours, if you’re reading this, I think you’re at your best when doing that unison drum-triplet thing you did that goes:

[stand back]

BANG – BANGBANGBANG –BANG

Goddit? Great.

Right – Friendship have a fair few more afrobeat elements than when I saw them last, which don’t quite fuse tonight until they drop what I THINK is ‘Lifeguard’, a great slice of harmony-laden bopalong punk acrobatics. Good news too – they still do that frenetic warp-speed headbanging as they unleash their blissed out firestorm of a set-closer. Singummer / Druminger “Hills” sounds all but too polite between songs; this stuff would go over just as well with a beery sneer and a fuckoff pout, but Friendship are more All-In than Allin with their crowd treatment. It works in their favour, and WELL I LIKE IT WHEN THE SUPPORTS REFERENCE EACH OTHER. IT’S A NICE THING TO DO.

Lubricated with ethanol and e-numbers, I squooze into the middle of the throng and, Shit in a bag and punch it, a fucking great pillar blocks my view. No matter, the front’s the place to truly experience these noisy New Jerseyans.

Titus Andronicus, and allow me a daydream, if you will:

Bassist, and renowned psychiatrist Ian Graetzer has persuaded the public health authority of Glen Rock NJ to allow him to take several “hopeless cases” on a tour around The World.  They stop only to play an hour of the most balls-out life-affirming thunderous riot of a gig in each country before they’re back in the secure bus.  The climaxes of songs like ‘Richard III’ and eponymous Fuck-Yeah-A-Thon ‘Titus Andronicus’, see the patients making such progress through a shared-around beered-up catharsis of fists in the air and flying cans, that Graetzer affords himself some time off to lose himself in the proceedings.  This is the best he’s felt about working in mental health for many years.

That may or may not make any sense, and is entirely fictional, but before the night’s through, several crowdsurfers (Including singer Patrick Stickles) take their turns to be pinned against the ceiling pipes while the band hammer out song after song of incendiary heartfelt suburban thunder.  Shoreditchers lose their inhibitions, I lose my house keys and after a duelling-guitar rendition of ‘The Battle Hymn of The Republic’ they drop ‘Titus Andronicus Forever’ and we all just lose any sense of decorum, dancing like only dogs are watching.

Amy Klein (Guitar / electric violin) wigs out in glorious counterpoint to Stickles’ mad-eyed wild-man-with-a-vendetta act, we all shout “IT’S STILL US AGAINST THEM” and before we know it the lights are on, the band are buckled up, halfway up the M1 and we’re left to shout “Woah.” at each other through tinnitus and sweat.

“bes [uwwwwwwwwwww] gi [uwwwwwwwwwww]..tw..[uwwwwwwwwwww]..n”..

[pointing to ear] “WHAAT?…

“I SAID BEST GIG OF 2010”

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