Yes, eagle eyed readers, I KNOW The Murder Capital were the headliners here but we’ve covered a show by them barely a week ago, and I wrote about them myself for Leicester’s always splendid Handmade festival in May.
We’ve referred to them several times since then, and pretty much every time we mention them, we’ve said they’re fucking ace. They ARE fucking ace. TONIGHT they’re fucking ace, complete with full on Geldof style admonishment, from frontman James McGovern, of a couple of possible troublemakers near the front of the packed venue: “Have you got a problem?” he enquires, before continuing, more aggressively this time, “I said have you got a fucking problem?!!! Fucking act like adults, the pair of you.”
It all adds to the already impossibly intense aura that surrounds the place when the Dublin quintet unleash their ‘Killing Joke meets The Bad Seeds with Will Sergeant on guitar’ sound on their mostly enthralled audience (bar one pair of pillocks who seemed to use the entire gig to chat about knitting patterns or something).
But I digress – the reason I have listed Egyptian Blue first here, is because they were the best fucking support band I’ve seen in about five years. I told their singer as much as he stood in front of us to watch TMC. He politely thanked me and probably took it with a pinch of salt, but I absolutely meant it and here’s why: The band have an unflagging energy, even in this (some would say overbearing) heat, and their tunes are memorable, hard hitting, immediate and somehow important sounding. They have the urgency of bands like Gang Of Four, and a quirky innovation that could reasonably lead to comparisons with the likes of Talking Heads or Devo too, the latter especially on the irascible ‘Contain It‘.
It’s clear that Egyptian Blue are as pissed off with the world – or at least those who supposedly run it – as we all are right now – but make no bones about it, seeing this Brighton four piece live is nothing less than a joyous experience. An impellent one, granted, but ebullient at the same time.
Who knows what they’re capable of from here? There are a lot of superb groups emerging from this – for want of a better word – ‘scene’, right now, but if I were to pin my hopes on the ‘band most likely to’, then it would have to be Egyptian Blue. Simply stunning.
Photos kindly provided by Keith Jobey.
