Sonic Boom Six / Random Hand / Left Alone / The Skints at Camden Underworld
Last Sunday was excellent - I went to see Sonic Boom Six for something like the 12th time at the last date on their tour at Camden Underworld. It was lucky they played the Underworld twice - they started the tour there too, but I went to see NOFX instead.
It was a good gig. After going to the National Portrait Gallery (see below) and having an argument with an ultra-zionist man working in a fish & chip shop about the ethics of eating animals (he was against eating animals… I did ask him if he serves fish), it was already turning out to be an excellent day, the gig just made it even better.
The first band on were The Skints, who were already playing when we arrived to a surprisingly packed venue - for the first band on to be generating that sort of enthusiasm from the audience was terribly impressive, and the band seemed slightly overwhelmed by it all too (“People are singing along to our songs”, remarked the guitarist once they started playing all of the old stuff). They play reggae and ska type stuff and are excellent at it. I can see them going far - at least in the “scene”.
The second band on were Left Alone, who had apparently come all the way from America. They were more straightforward punk, who clearly wished they were Rancid. After a slow start though, they played an excellent set.
Random Hand were on third - another band I’ve seen times, and they’ve really developed into a band that could be very big, and it very much felt like a headlining set. They came on stage to the Godzilla theme tune, and even briefly played along to it before launching into a ferocious set. I really need to buy their second album.
Then finally, Sonic Boom Six, or “The Boom”, as fans call them, played. They took the unusual step of playing the new album (that the tour was supporting) in full, before ending the set with some older stuff. I dare-say they should have jumbled things up a bit - after four or five songs that I didn’t know well enough yet, there were no really familiar tunes to pick me and re-energise my enthusism - though this was made up for by the end of the gig, which was pretty much their six best songs played back to back. “People ack like they don’t know” “Meanwhile back in the real world”, “Sound of the revolution”, “Bigger than punk rock” and “All in”, which featured Itch from the King Blues (who had been in the audience) rapping.
By the end of it all, I was pretty exhausted… and had work at 5am the next morning…
It was a good gig though - perhaps a little too much new stuff from the bands - the Skints were playing stuff from their as-yet unrecorded album, Random Hand and SB6 played new stuff that I don’t know well enough yet, but still. I guess people are going to moan about new stuff no matter what happens though.
