The 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster

Maybe it’s just the careful times of heightened security we’re living in. Maybe it’s the guilt we feel from allowing global warming to happen hanging over us. Maybe everybody had just had a particular tough day in the office. Whatever it is – one thing’s clear tonight at The Scala: crowds don’t know when they’ve got something good before them and certainly don’t know how to have fun any more.

Prior to their two year hiatus, The 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster were unequivocally the greatest live band on the planet, this reviewer having experience all of the following at numerous various live shows: Stage invasions, fat men crowd-surfing in thongs, live sex shows, a wrestling ring with wrestling matches, a free bar, people climbing on the lighting rig, people letting off fireworks in the audience... all of this conjured by their psychobilly thrash antics made for an unbeatable, adrenaline pounding experience.

Now they’re back, with new guitarist Rich Fowels taking the place of original Matchbox Mastermind Andy Huxely, and while they’ve refined their doomsday party call even more than ever, it seems that, for us lot on the other hand, our attention has waned. We are fickle c*nts aren’t we?

For their utterly thrilling, hour-long set is overshadowed by the intense apathy from the crowd, who do, well, absolutely nothing throughout. Lead singer Guy McKnight is looking scarier than ever – having had his old look ripped off by Russell Brand, he’s grown his to an even more beastly length he prowls around the stage looking not unlike a black and white Blanka from Street Fighter II.

The whole band are clearly infuriated by the lack of effort being made by the crowd – the visceral likes of ‘Fishfingers’ and ‘Morning Has Broken’ channelling into no-one, causing barely a stir beyond the true believers right at the front. Even when McKnight attempts his first trademark stage-dive he is (almost) dropped flat on his face. These are indeed sorry times.

AND IT’S OUR F*CKING FAULT. The 80’s Matchbox B-Line Disaster are STILL the best live band on the planet, they’re just incredible! Spooky sojourns through ‘Mister Mental’, ‘Psychosis Safari’ and the brilliant ‘Love Turns To Hate’ (curiously never released) but all the bland non-music we waste our day to days listening to utter ridicule, while new tracks off their ‘In The Garden EP’ take a turn for the even heavier which, if people had any engagement, would turn them all into back-flipping fruitcakes.

So while the only decent place you can go these days for a riot is a Gallows gig, the true titans of thrash EMBD seem to have been propelled into a sphere of retro-cool, where everyone who used to love them has grown up a bit too much to have fun, and they haven’t kept in touch with the new musical youth enough to have them come along (this show was 18+). It’s a damn shame, they’re better than ever. Here’s to the past at least – naked hairy man crowd surfing in thong, I will never forget you – and here’s hope for the future.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.