AntiProduct

Live at Brudenell Social Club on Thursday, 29th July 2004

Sex, Drugs, Profanity, Leaping, Stripping, Heckling, Moshing, Exploding Equipment, Biting the heads off bats... This show is already proving to be the Devil's own shopping list for the ultimate Rock 'n' Roll experience and we're only two songs in! (Alright, except the bats bit, that hasn't happened yet, but at this rate you wouldn't bet against it...)

It's 8.10pm on a balmy (and increasingly barmy) Thursday evening and Polly, lead singer of Leeds' premier Glam-Punk hybrids Phluid is entertaining the early-bird crowd with his limited repertoire of jokes. The crowd is in turn entertaining the singer with its rather more developed repertoire of sexually suggestive heckles. Scottish, lead guitarist of said glam-punks entertains the crowd, needing little encouragement it would seem, with an impromptu strip tease.

Whilst undoubtedly surreal, this seems strangely apt behaviour for the working men's club venue rather quaintly described by staff as "The Concert Room". You can't help feeling that the venue was probably designed more seasonal professionals in both joke-telling and stripping department, but you can't fault the effort.

Giant bassist Jef D meanwhile desperately scurries (as only a 6'7" bassist can) across the back of the stage with various Scaramangas, Anti Products and crew members trying to repair the exploding bass amp that is the cause for the deviation from the planned programme after just two tracks - The E'd out Space-Cadet baiting recent single L.O.V.E.D.U.P. and a rather fine (if bassless) new track that remains anonymous.

Eventually Plan A is abandoned, a new amp is wheeled in and thus the show can resume much to the relief of Polly (running out of jokes) Scottish (running out of clothes), and the crowd (running out).

Phluid pile through the remainder of their set with abandon. Despite their extensive combined touring experience, this is a band that continue to get better and better with time. This year's superb mini-album Release showed significant development in both song writing and sound crafting from 2002's Cynical Smile album, but the new material which makes up the predominant part of this live set demonstrates the kind of creative growth that can only come with absolute confidence.

Out it seems are the noir comic-book sketches of personal identity, in is a new-found social conscience of a significantly more global proportion. With former social reformers such as Michael Moore fast turning into hysterical caricatures of themselves, no less of an industry than the governments and systems they seek to bring down, as has often been the case its left to your humble Rock 'n' Roll band to put the intelligent case for opposition. "I love my country, but I fear my Government" whispers Polly with a menace that sends tingles up the spine during the apocalyptic Bang Bang.

After the somewhat Pistolian Breakdown In Communication, the excitable teenage gaggle of Mr. Shiraz fans get the chance to warm-up with a make-shift mosh-pit during Phluid's closer, debut single Stray Day. "You'll like this one", he assures them from the safety of the stage. He's not wrong either.

Now fully limbered up, the Mr Shiraz faithful start milling around the front awaiting the arrival of their heroes/mates. Shiraz eventually amble on with lead singer/cheerleader Mike sporting the kind of flat cap that gives Yorkshire a bad name. Still once the rum bunch that make up Mr. Shiraz are in place and ready for the off, it becomes clear that image is very low down the priority list.

The guitarist seems to have a full set of punk credentials, Ferrari Red SG et al; the drummer seems as wide as Jef Phluid is tall, the bassist looks like she's far too nice a girl to be in a punk band, whilst the brass players (brothers surely?) look like the bastard sons of Douglas Hurd and are probably very good at chess. In a musical climate dominated by style over content, this can only be a good thing.

With the teenage throng virtually foaming at the mouth with the prospect of the fun on offer, the band launch into their first number - a kind of Mighty Mighty Bosstones-esque ska/punk/pop crossover-thing - with gusto. All of these musicians seem technically sound, some particularly so, the bass playing for example is superb and the brass gel together perfectly sounding, as all good brass sections should, like one fat instrument playing in harmony, but somehow as a whole it fails to totally convince.

Mr Shiraz are one of these bands that you find yourself trying to like. The energy, enthusiasm and general goofing around are likeable qualities, but they can't hide the fact that its just not that tight, and in a ska band, a loose rhythm section is about as bad as it gets. Unfortunately compounding this problem is that the songs are at best average.

Still, they all seem to be having a good time and the partisan crowd pogo around with glee, but given the quality of the bill this falls a bit short of the standard.

Nevermind. Because from out of nowhere five scary looking people dressed entirely in black have arrived on stage and from the looks of things they mean business. This, ladies and gentlemen, is The Scaramanga Six and after just a few seconds of dual-kit cymbal and drum roll and a triumphant God-like chord that heralds the opening of Soul Destroyer it becomes clear that this is going to be a very special Rock 'n' Roll show.

There is, quite simply, no one in the Leeds scene, and probably the country for that matter, doing anything like this. The shadow of the Six's producer and Cardiacs legend Tim Smith looms large, not just in the song construction, but in the stage mannerisms, particularly of enigmatic bassist Steve Morricone who takes gleeful delight in shhh-ing the audience at regular intervals. However, this takes an affectionate influence and rather than replicate it in homage, mashes it up and spits it out in a totally new direction. Mr. Smith would be proud.

After the near operatic excess of the jaw-dropping opener, things shift yet another seemingly impossible gear upwards with a skull-crushing pummel through recent single Poison Pen. New recruit Chris Catalyst's hysterical keyboard skits zip through Paul Morricone's suitably manic baritone vocal lines like a swarm of angry bees adding a real depth of colour to the sound against the backdrop wall-of-noise guitars.

This is unforgiving music, the kind that leaves you emotionally knackered, but still wanting more. This is not the kind of verse-chorus rock that drops a load of instruments for the third verse. Nor is it the kind where you'll get wiggly wig-outs or indulgent meandering solos. When breaks come they are like incendiary devices blasting through the dense sound to tip it off course for a bit before normal service is resumed. Thrilling stuff all round.

Incredibly, for such a full sounding band it never becomes particularly heavy in the traditional sense. Somehow this manages to tread the tightrope of musical invention and an uncompromising sound whilst staying perfectly accessible. Some feat.

By the time the mighty Elemental brings the set to a close it becomes clear that the musical branch of the United Nations that is AntiProduct have their work cut out if they're going to get anywhere close to this. However, being upstaged is clearly not something that AntiProduct are used to and given the sheer amount of stagecraft these seasoned pros have it's hardly surprising.

With the stage bathed entirely in neon light the American-English-Argentinean-Italian-French boy-girl five piece saunter on modelling the kind of outfits that make Vivienne Westwood seem like the height of conservatism and sporting enough neon face paint to make you concerned about redirecting passing Jumbo Jets. For the boys the order of the day seems to be excess: big hair, wild costumes, extravagant mannerisms. For the girls it's minimalism: strategically placed strips of leather and not much else. The Mr Shiraz fans are looking woozy.

Whilst the music is of perfectly good quality, you can't help thinking that Phluid do this glam-punk crossover just a little more convincingly and that the songs seem to lack a little depth. However, to be frank this all takes a bit of a backseat to the sheer theatre of a stage show that would put P T Barnum to shame. It is (I am almost ashamed to admit) immensely good fun. Perhaps style over content isn't always such a bad thing after all.

As the show is essentially a bit of a one trick pony, the capering does eventually take its toll. After all, there is only so much of a grown man in his mid/late-thirties clambering over speaker stacks and bar room tables that you can take, but as a one-off AntiProduct offer a unique Rock 'n' Roll spectacle and a dogged commitment to histrionic pantomime long since deemed deeply unfashionable.

Even if this does steer a little closer to Kiss than it does The Tubes at times, its heart is in the right place and as you stare half in childish wonder, half in utter bemusement as the odd impish fellow in the funny make up attempts to scale the fixtures and fittings once more you can't help thinking that the 'in crowd' are maybe missing out on that long since forgotten ingredient in popular music: Fun.

I'd put a decent case for spending £4 on any one of these bands in the right environment, but to have them all together for a quid each is just spoiling us. So we finish as we started, a fitting cyclical progression for such a diverse gig, with the very embodiment of all those long-forgotten Rock 'n' Roll show values, only with more neon this time. And thankfully no bat munching.

• www.thescaramangasix.co.uk
• www.facebook.com/pages/mr-shiraz/243404572350473
• www.phluid.co.uk

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