Reviewed on 4th August 2005.

Infadels

Live at Faversham on Saturday, 30th July 2005

For the uninitiated in things Nasty, Nasty Fest is the coolest, most fashionable festival in Leeds. This is the land of the true fashionista, where colossal hair for the boys; plunging neck lines for the girls and the most god damn cool clothing available to mankind are compulsory! Whilst casually sipping your Vodka Martini you can choose at your luxury from a collection of the cream of up and coming bands from all over this little planet of ours.

Your humble correspondent's evening starts with the self proclaimed 'Neanderthal rock' of Smother - a punky three piece whose set certainly gains approval of the gurning fan wearing a Beatles T-shirt and dancing like a loon. Smother try hard to win over a scarce crowd - they played at the same time as The Ivories entertained a packed conservatory. Smother rattled through the set, with the lead singer hurling himself around stage leaving no rock pose unused, occasionally pausing to abuse or moon the crowds and harass girls onto stage with them. An immense performance from the front man if nothing else!

Next up were Keith, their set commencing late and bedevilled throughout by sound problems. The Warrington 4 piece however proved triumphant against this adversity, playing a truncated set of high quality Coral-a-like psychedelic-baggy-jingle-jangle-Indy. They got large sections of the crowd bouncing up and down in an extremely appreciative way and it is from here that the evening started to take off!

If the publicity is to be believed, The Rifles are about to become the 21st Century's answer to the Jam and the Clash. On this kind of form, who are we to argue? Donned in a uniform, sharp black, and sporting a fast, punky, angular style of music: this is a band to watch. Tracks like Peace and Quiet stood out as truly monumental punk fusion. This was the first band to really grab the audience by the groin and bounce them up and down against the Faversham's ceilings.

From there it just got better. Electric Eel Shock stormed on stage, and immediately start hammering their guitars against their heads and whipping the largest crowd of the night into a frenzy. Immediately the first 6 rows turned into a foaming, sea of moshing people which do not pause until the band left the stage. EES' music is not the main point; this was a spectacle, with the guitarist climbing on the amps as the bassist launches himself into the crowd, all before the second song of the set "I Can Hear the Sex Noise". The only word to truly describe the spectacle is "Manic", they sing, they play punk, they play rock, they teach the crowd Japanese. Then I realised that the drummer was only wearing a very long, strategically placed, sock...

The penultimate band of the evening were the mighty Leeds band ¡Forward, Russia! For those of you who have been on the moon for the last few months, things with "the Russia" have been getting quite interesting with Steve Lamacq generating great interest in the band and not just because of their gorgeous, single, talented drummer Katie. A national tour with sell out after sell out, after sell out has followed and now they come to Nasty Fest for a true homecoming. Following EES was a little bit of a poisoned chalice, and rather than try to outplay the hyperactive Japanese threesome the Ruskies played to their strengths of amazing punk tunes and incendiary performances. Tom screams into the microphone, wrapping the cord around and around his body, looking a dead cert for strangulation. This was how rock and roll was supposed to be - new, innovative and close to the edge a liquid art form, twisting and turning, changing all the time. Awesome.

Finally on the night are The Infadels. Suspicions were confirmed that the double whammy of EES and ¡Forward, Russia! were the peak and wherever to next would be downhill, the remaining, diminished crowd; the beer filled rump now with hair a little less perfect, clothes a little more scratty, dirty and less ironed following a days heavy partying. The Infadels took over the stage in style, brandishing all manner of percussion as they go! The mayhem on stage, a theme for the evening, continued as the band carries all kind of paraphernalia including acid faces on sticks. The brand of electronic punk sat slightly uncomfortably with the rest of the evening's more guitar based bands, however, they hammer through their set, dancing and singing eccentrically throughout.

So that was it. Nasty Fest has been packed up and put into its box for the next year. Without Nasty the world will be a much saner, more predictable place. All those amazing fashion statements and phenomenal haircuts will be available for view, but not in such an impressive collection in one place at one time (Ok with the possible exception of Pigs). For that it will be much the worse!!!

Come on next year!!

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On 4th August 2005 at 20:59 Dave LMS wrote...

I remember The Infadels from Glastonbury. I was quite impressed by them. Didn't dawn on me now that they were Nasty Fest headliners even though I saw them on the listings