Three of the five men onstage are practising Buddhists, your correspondent has been reliably informed. The mind boggles. Is it perhaps the guitarist with the Edward Scissorhands hair and slap, who's dressed like a Victorian dandy? Strutting, growling and near demonically intense lead singer, Guy McKnight, the apparent bastard son of Messrs Pop and Presley? The bass player in the gas mask, maybe? Certainly, Buddhism is a broad, tolerant and welcoming church, counting Tina Turner and Beastie Boy Adam Yauch among its rock 'n' roll disciples, but these degenerate freaks?
Whatever it is that floats The Eighties Matchbox B–Line Disaster's religious boat, they’re surely the most engagingly unhinged, wild spirited and unashamedly theatrical band currently bothering the British populace. That they choose to decorate their playpen with kitsch statuary, several flaming candelabra and trademark skull-emblazoned backdrop is both a sign of their triumphant otherworldliness and a testament to their commitment to entertain. Regular blokes Eighties Matchbox are not.
It's been suggested that McKnight's mob have based their entire career on "Goo Goo Muck", but it's a dismissal that sells them unfairly short. Certainly, they've appropriated The Cramps' punkabilly twang, lurching tempo and filthy-swamp dynamics, but Eighties Matchbox have hatched their own, fabulously freaky thing – a sort of doo-wop hardcore with psychedelic overtones. Tonight they test drive much of forthcoming sophomore album, "The Royal Society" (due in September) and the new tracks prove overwhelmingly that their warped, collective heart beats with a love of Black Sabbath, Dead Kennedys, Fugazi and The Jesus Lizard as much as for The Cramps and Captain Beefheart. Put simply, they f*cking rock.
"I got a date with destruction," rumbles McKnight in the chorus of "Rise Of The Eagles" and we don't doubt him for a minute. Tall, lean and long of hair, he cuts a devilish figure, the hip voodoo priest leading his motley crew of camrades through a full-tilt set that threatens to combust at any moment from sheer, nervous energy. Even a tune with the sweet title of "Ice Cream" starts with McKnight howling "destroy!" at the top of his lungs and then jabbering about "demons on the wall, demons in my sleep", while "Psychosis Safari" and "Mister Mental" suggest that Eighties Matchbox are not exactly strangers to the altered state of mind.
Five boys rebooting the ailing engine of rock 'n' roll with a whacking great dose of Grand Guignol, before running it clean off the rails - not bad for a bunch of Buddhists from Brighton.
