When a band has been given the chance to perform on the hallowed floorboards of the 100 Club stage, you, and more importantly, they know, it’s a big deal. Its London town’s oldest live music venue (promoting live music since 1942 if you please…) and a venue which has played host to the crème de menthe of rock n roll since, well, forever. From blues legend Muddy Waters to the Who, the Kinks to the Sex Pistols, the Jam to Oasis… The list, as you can imagine, is endless.
Stepping up to the throne tonight were the kings of High Wycombe, or as they’re probably best known, The Wutars. So, with the whiff of the 100 club’s musical heritage in the air and with Mick and Keef’s JD scented aftershave still lingering above their heads, could Alex Gold and co. step up to the plate? Tonight’s gig was part of the 30th anniversary celebrations for punk rock’s most enduring underground trooper Spizz Energi. With a healthy number of mo-hawked disciples and Rotten worshippers present, the band were perhaps met by their most Un-Wutarian crowd to date.
However, aside from metal studs, aluminous spikes and dye, the gig that Alex Gold and the boys put on tonight stood as the new benchmark in the band’s short, but ever evolving, musical timeline. Opener, ‘Sea Monkey’ set the standard for the rest of the night – a Coral-esque up-strummed sing-along with one of the best chorus’s ever to leave Alex’s face: ‘It’s easy to get lost in the dark!’ he passionately spat.
Fan favourite and early classic ‘Waste My Days Away’ was up next and it was clear that Samuel Terrific, a.k.a the Wutars’ drummer, was determining the energy levels of the performance – levels which simply demanded his band-mates to follow suit.
Making his official live debut with the band tonight was singer/songwriter and lifetime friend of the band Mr Alex Kew. On tonight’s viewing, strapped with an acoustic guitar and weighing in with glorious harmonies, he added an extra sense of completeness to the band. None more so than on ‘Fortune’, another classic in-waiting and with a chorus sounding extra-colossal this evening thanks to Gold and Kew’s perfectly tuned vocals.
The opening track from the band’s debut E.P ‘Stay Up Stay Up’ gets a fitting airing tonight. The tune echoes the sentiments of the cash-strapped & youthfully exuberant rock n roll star in-waiting with arguably the most confident and down-right justified lyric to come from Alex G’s songbook: ‘Stay Up Stay Up, We’ll be the stars of Oxford St…’. No ‘we’ll be’ about it, lads.
‘Bless Your Bones’ arrives in perfectly blissed-out style, and makes for tonight’s jaw-droppingly speechless moment. I hate this word, but ‘beautiful’ is the only way to describe the song this evening, ‘Wherever you may roam I’ll bless your bones’, sings Alex over a mix of acoustic guitars and Alex Kew’s harmonies. Bloody marvellous.
Maz Marron takes centre stage with his battle-cry for non-conformity, ‘Different Story’, despite the unwanted heckles from a very very short person throughout the set – is it acceptable to say ‘midget’ now or what? Sounding brilliantly like The Clash crossed with The Jam, ‘Different Story’ is played at a faster, more ferocious tempo compared to the recorded version on the E.P., not surprising considering that by this stage Sam’s hands had started smoking.
Our stars in-waiting leave us tonight with the more punk-ish sounding assault ‘Tea Drinkers Of The World’, a song which leaves the crowd, if not fully converted, certainly buzzing.
The Wutars not only stepped up to the plate tonight, but consumed everything in sight leaving the rest of us starving for more. With the news of the Oasis implosion and the somewhat lack-lustre mood that’s scarily sweeping over British Indie at present, you have to hand it to The Wutars for instilling that forgotten sense of belief. Watch this space.
N.Harrison.
Tags: 100 Club, Alex Gold, Alex Kew, oasis, Sea Monkey, Spizz Energi, Stay Up, The Jam, The Wutars
