“It’s not repetition, it’s discipline.” – Mark E. Smith
There is very little better in live music than a band returning to a venue greeted with an adorning crowd and a host of high energy tunes, and the Alpaca Presents gig on the 3rd of February saw Taipan do just that, making a long awaited homecoming to a sold out main stage at Crofters Rights.
They opened with a quick one-two punch, which included I Never – a wild, thrashed lament, and after a few more songs I caught Josh staring up at the blood red disco ball, this mad look in his eye. The crowd were getting to him, and he was getting to the crowd.
Double time sections gave way to fast and loose moshpits, each song drawing a more crazed cheer from the audience that seemed to have the three piece on stage absolutely in their element.
The interplay between drum, guitar and bass was that of an experienced and dedicated band – often the drums would latch onto the rhythm of a song and then start to dictate it back to the other instruments, there’s an innate confidence to it, which in the energy of the night felt perfect.
Particularly during the second half of the show, the epic, almost cinematic quality of the songs cut through. The close control of the instrumentation meant that when the time came to build to a crescendo on tracks like Waysides, they were able to do with ease and an open catharsis.
Along with this there were songs that held a sentimental quality. Guitars that previously thrashed and mangled played open, vulnerable melodies. Josh mentions his father, and it becomes obvious just how important these songs are to him, as well as the adoring crowd.
Taipan rewarded us with a couple of straightforward punk rockers, Ash, and the other side of the double single to I Never – You’re Nothing. Two electric songs that unleashed a massive moshpit and a crowd who were itching to get down to it for the whole gig. The circle grew like a black hole, only more violent.
Then the dust settled, and all that was left was feedback. Taipan stood utterly triumphant.
Elsewhere on the night ‘post-gazers’ Bible Club were on for main support. The last time I’d seen them was they headlined the Down Stokes festival at The Canteen and absolutely tore the house down. On Saturday night they set about doing the same with one of this writer’s favourite songs from Bristol of the last few years. It is genuinely worth the admission price alone to see Bible Club perform this song, which I still don’t know the name of.
It’s a mad loop of swirling guitars and changing rhythms. Escalating and dissapating with ease, it speaks to mastery they’ve developed over their own style and songwriting. A properly fresh track from a band who keep getting better.
Wise Guy showed off the group’s capacity for invention – with distinct post punk influence – heavy vocals and a repetitive spiral like structure. The thing about repetition though, is that each time the structure loops back around the repeat sounds different, because it really is different when you get down to that level.
Repetition, at that level, and within punk music more broadly is one of the qualities that makes it so confrontational. It asks a question of the listener and then asks it again. Eventually it’s only up to you to make something of it. To be able to do that and perform in such a way that is challenging their audience, is exactly what Bible Club are able to harness in their song structures.
The song breaks into a spoken word section with a dystopic psychedelic soundscape, and leaves you with the impression of a deeply worried songwriting that is shrouded in mystery by structure. It’s uncomfortable and jagged and almost a defensive style of music that’s accompanied by a performance and mood that is hard to define. Post Gaze as label is fun, but Bible Club psychedelic edge means their performances always have room to play.
Wyr (as in Wire) opened the show. Bristol/South Wales, female led shoegaze that started off tentatively, the singers’ voice lighting up a path that her band followed through.
Later in the show they shout out the influences they’ve inherited so much from – the likes of Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine as well as Bible Club and Taipan themselves. But their second song – Gravity plays like a Goo-era Sonic Youth rocker. The refrain – don’t tell anyone about us – speaks to a vulnerability that the texture of the music seems to cover up. But over the course of the song, with each circle back, another layer is pulled back.
It becomes the centre piece of a gig that features fat, fat, basslines, fragrant guitar tones, and a singer who grows into the show with each passing line. In spite of telling her (presumably) catholic parents that she wouldn’t swear before the show, it’s only right that as the crowds grew some profanity slipped out.
During a stunning individual performance of What You Are she steps out into the crowd with her microphone and basks in the darkness. They closed with Happy Face, with a refrain calling the listener to put one on, but you couldn’t help but smile as the last drop of feedback passed, and Wyr rightfully took in the raucous reaction.
You can listen to Bible Club and Taipan on Spotify, and catch Wyr next at The Moon in Cardiff on the 20th, or The Exchange in Bristol on the 20th of March. Bible Club’s next show is back at Crofters Rights on the 5th of March.
HAZE TRANSMISSIONS 