Gay For Johnny Depp
Live at Cockpit Room 3 on Sunday, 20th February 2011
Our Reputation As Gentlemen live up to their slightly pretentious name with a performance full of lazers, smoke and indulgent instrumentals. That said their music is highly crafted and they manage ambient and imposing equally well. It's an accomplished set which they clearly enjoy even if it's not to everyone's taste.
Local trio Castrovalva play an impressive set of noiserock/hardcore/grime punctuated by front man Leemun Smith's entertaining if slightly aggressive audience interaction. New song 'Senorita' and fan request 'Donut' are particularly venomous but the whole set demonstrates Castrovalva as a real force to be reckoned with.
The Computers are on a whole other level though. Their brand of hardcore is passionate, off kilter and ever so slightly unhinged demonstrating the best way to spend the holy day. All of the songs and yelpy and command attention and while the lyrics aren't always clear you do get the impression that there message is both vital and humorous. All four musicians command the stage and they are more than competent on their respective instruments playing extremely tightly throughout even when frontman Alex disappears down the stairs from Cockpit 3 with his mic and guitar. Impressive. The new single 'Group Identity' is out now and is most certainly worth a listen.
Gay For Johnny Depp have a truly wonderful name, perhaps even good enough to rival Cerebral Ballzy for most outrageous moniker in American Hardcore. The Brooklyn band take to the stage amid a cloud of smoke and to a rapturous reception. Their set is comprised of frantic spazzcore/metal compositions all around three minutes in length which manage to be simultaneously amusing and affronting. Particularly entertaining is a mid-song breakdown which turns into a mass sing along of Robbie Williams' 'Angels' before reverting back to ear splitting thrash. 'Pink Flag' is a brilliantly ambivalent homage to their roots and they finish strongly with a cover of Slade's 'Come On Feel The Noise' predictably altered to 'Cum On Feel The Boize'. A lot of people feel that Gay For Johnny Depp are trying to be controversial for the sake of it with their homoerotic name, offensive lyrics and anti-religious vamping but in truth they are not really that shocking. They are just quite camp and entertaining and there's really nothing wrong with that!
