In these days of shrink wrapped rebellion, when the noise and fury of punk has become just another marketing tool and the likes of Good Charlotte and Busted and Avril Lavigne can have a mainstream career by approximating the genre's style (without ever going anywhere near its original meaning), it's a surprise to encounter the genuine article raging onstage in a grubby Camden fleapit.
Amen mean it, man. It should be a palindrome, tattooed on the skulls of every cynical suit that's sought to make a quick buck from ruining our culture (alas it's neither, but never mind). They are chaos, fronted by Chaos. They couldn't pull together a slick stageshow if their Dead Kennedys fanclub memberships depended on it. They ricochet around the stage, practically falling apart, the spirit of something heroic coursing through their veins.
What do they mean? We'll never know. Their amps are daubed in slogans in bold white capital letters, but the last words are obscured by the heads of the crowd. "Noise For..." "Revolt Against..." They need higher stages or boxes to put their amps on. It's cutely fitting anyhow that both slogans remained unfinished, as if it doesn't matter what we're creating noise for or rebelling against, as long as we're doing it, the instinct greater than the intent (actually the first one's "Noise For Violence" I manage to see towards the end, but that's besides the point. My review, my rules).
The last band to pull off this trick were the Manics. Yeah, you heard. Back when they really were punk rock, when it was one album only and no need for anyone to top themselves to create a legend. Now, after years of bouncing spanners off Jello Biafra's righteous ire, Casey Chaos has stepped up to the podium, spotwelding outrageous soundbites and storming fury together in a truly thrilling fashion. He's Manics stylish too: ripped blazer, a red rose in the buttonhole, random polemic splattered on its back in liquid paper.
The old songs are OK, but the new stuff really ignites the room, sending the soggy moshpit (soaked down in the first ten minutes by a guy with a hose pipe stage right, for some bizarre reason) into a gleeful fit. "California Bleeding" is genius: "Get Ready" by The Temptations, blasted apart by indignation and plutonium, a howling, screaming, fist waving, flag burning anthem that celebrates nothing but rebellion itself (Rocket From The Crypt did something similar with "Come See, Come Saw" but left out the political ire). "Hello" and "Please Kill Me" are nihilism run riot, the sound of a valve blowing in your soul.
There are a few missteps. Heck, this wouldn't be Amen if everything went to plan. Thanking Sony is not the greatest of ideas if you're our last hope for true punk (but, hey, subverting from the inside, blah blah, sure you've read the script). A cover of The Stooges' "I Wanna Be Your Dog" is fun but vaguely pointless when they've got so much of their own brilliance to unleash. But at the final reckoning, when Sum 41 are on their knees before St Peter (a big Anti Pasti fan by all accounts) begging for mercy, Amen won't have too much to worry about.
Revolt against...
