endless bummer

Rarely have I had a day as good as Saturday 17th January 2009. It was a little bit like the stars had aligned and the northern lights descended onto Lancaster. Probably. I don’t actually know what any of that means, what I am trying to say is that Lanc Faster #1 was not only a success, but unbelievably, ridiculously, and in every other way brilliant.

So big kudos to Thom from Slow Riot for putting all this together and selling me some 12″s from his distro too. And props to the other people involved in making it awesome (the dude who did sound was awesome, and the dude who manned the door and everyone else involved). The venue was so great, it looked like a standard room for bands but it actually secretly contained bags and bags of excellent acoustics.

Here, in true ExB style, is a run down of the bands and what I thought.

The day kicked off with We Happened Next! (or WExHAPPENEDxNEXT depending on where you look). They were great. Obviously. I’ve already raved about them once, so I’m not going to just sit here writing about how great the same three bands are all the time. Well, not any more anyway. Yeah, they were great. They played party thrashcore and it was rad. I missed a bit of it because I jumped on stage to sing Scholastic Deth’s Revenge Of The Nerds with them. There wasn’t an awful lot of people there yet, but the buzz was pretty buzzy already. They are still one my favourite local bands, sometimes in secret I wish that Hammers would play less so xWHNx could play more!
Speaking of best bands in an area, Jonathan Ross are just amazing. I’ve already raved about these too. They ploughed through a massive set list and barely stopped for breath. Faster than a speeding bullet and just as likely to leave you in a crumpled, bloody heap. When the set was over, I was literally in a daze. Maybe it could be attributed to a mild seizure brought on by the incessent strobe lights focussing almost exclusively at both of my eyes, but I like to think it was the sheer awesomeness of what I had just witnessed. They need to get some releases out there pretty sharpish.
Nowhere Fast proved they are consistent as well as awesome. Just as they were last time I saw them, they were fast, angry and dirty. They did lose some points for not playing my favourite track of their demo, White Van Man, but you can’t have everything. Even so, it is just excellent 80’s style pissed off punk violence. And that is all you ever need in my opinion.
NickC and Andy took to the stage again, this time with Hammers. Those boys have stamina. Hammers played the same set as the previous night at the 1 in 12, but the sound was infinitely better than in Bradford. Although the bass was a little bit low. The strobes were still causing me issues but Hammers sounded the best I have heard them, and they looked rad through the haze of the smoke machine.
Brat Pack also sounded better than in Bradford, perhaps spurred on by the crowd’s (including yours truly) party mosh antics. The songs were still bouncy, fun and fast. I can’t wait for them to come over again!
I don’t know an awful lot about The 255’s. Their slow, late 80’s dischord, emo-esque, gruff pop sound took me by surprise, especially on this bill. They played nice, although I wasn’t sold on the vocals, and they won me over with their banter. “We are only here to counteract the fastness of The Ergon Carousel”, they announced.
They were really fucking fast too, The Ergon Carousel. As far as I am aware, this was there second show. Featuring former members of the excellent Narcosis and armed with a barrage of brutal noise they smashed through their set without flinching or waning. Like I said, they were fast. And loud. Really, really loud. Generally, I’m not a fan of grind live, it is the sort of thing where I really have to be in the right frame of mind but they were excellent. They have a six track EP out on Holy Roar which you should almost definitely get.
Things got a bit lairy in the bar downstairs, and due to muchos cider and jaeger, I managed to miss the entire Hygiene set. Bummer. Andy from Hammers said that they were a “bunch of shiny shoed bastards” anyway.
I managed to compose myself and made it back upstairs in time to go party mosh insane to Burning The Prospect, the crowning glory of the current Boston (not Boston) scene. Playing heady D-Beat with plenty of crust and cores thrown in for good measure, their grim sound akin to Tragedy and blah blah blah, you’ve heard all the comparisons and don’t need me to be going on about what they sound like. Just get the 7″, get down to a show and get blown away.
I thought Mesa Verde sounded a bit like Fall Of Efrafa. Everybody else disagreed, after to listening to Mesa Verde since I would agree with their disagreement (confused? Yeah, me too). Either way, they were pretty incredible. Mixing euro screamo, with Rites Of Spring and chucking around some post rock bits really bloody works. The music had a truly epic feel about it, building large sound scapes and smashing them down with the heavy bits.
The whole thing came to a head with The Shitty Limits. I’ve had their 7″ Here Are The Limits for a while now, but hadn’t managed to catch them live yet. They swaggered around the stage area playing speedy but sloppy garage punk like Iggy Pop Jr with an air of smugness that was, frankly, pretty fitting. The vocalist guy did kick me in face while the final human pyramid of the evening was taking shape but I’m not one for punk rock grudges. They were great and I am a massive fan.

The whole thing was over dead on time, which is an excellent achievement. Props go out to whoever brought the vegan pasties and the cake which were both excellent, and also double props to Thom for putting together such a ruddy good line up. Extra props to the dude with the distro where I got the Joe Pesci/Sylvester Staline and the Warboys/TAG splits.

I feel like Exhibit, handing all these mad props out.

If you are out and about in the next few weeks, you’ll see me in or around the pit for these:

Rot In Hell and Iron Clad have pulled out though. The Hammers 7″ should be on sale at this show, so you probably shouldn’t miss it.

And there is the sweatbox show tomorrow, xWHNx, Jonathan Ross, Fuck With Fire and Valhalla Pacifists. I can’t find the bloody poster for it, can I? Which is a shame because it is good.

No news on my band yet. Which is a bit rubbish really.