NERF HERDER Brighton Concorde 2
Gig review

Before I get stuck into this review, I should just point out that there probably won't be much mentioned about the actual music. This is the usual eyemachine style of talking more about the event rather than a list of songs that were played and how well they were played; that can be saved for fanboy sites.

The great thing about gigs by little American punk bands is that the entertainment isn't always restricted to the guys playing the music. The audience is usually full of jumpy little punk kids, hyped up on jelly babies and cherry coke that are sometimes a refreshing distraction. And besides, it's always hilarious to see someone get hurt trying to stage-dive and falling straight to the floor.

I've never been to the Concorde 2 before, but was warned by the newcomer to our little gig group, Jess, that it was reminiscent of a school-disco hall. Seeing as this was an all ages, early start, early finish gig I thought it seemed fairly suitable.

Firstly I was pretty annoyed that I was made to relinquish my #0001 ticket to the doorman. Why I had to do this I have no idea, perhaps they thought we could make paper darts out of them to launch at the band, who knows?

I was fairly excited approaching the venue as I heard a track from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 coming from inside. Now 'Consumed' were supporting and I was sure I'd heard of them before. When I got in inside I discovered it was 'Consumed' onstage playing 'Heavy Metal Winner', and it was them on the soundtrack, they weren't just covering the song.

The venue was packed full of kids, a similar situation to the recent Wheatus gig, but without the parents. Most of them were in school shirts and ties, which is maybe a new image, or they had actually come straight from school.

Now I can't help but study people in places like this, and the rest of Consumed's set was pretty dull so it was something else to do. So firstly I'll just run through some of my initial observations.

A few of the kids had attempted Mohawks, although now everybody's probably calling them 'Beckhams'. I wouldn't mind but even he's got it wrong. At least, if anything, make the reference of Travis Bickle for Christ's sake! I'm sure most of these kids can only look back in a few years time and curl into a phoetal position and start rocking at the remembrance of just how stupid they looked. Not that the haircut is stupid, but just that fact that they were trying to be 70s punks in 2001.

There was also a, well…fat kid in front of us with a bit of a basin haircut and side-achingly long shorts playing air guitar to Consumed, yes he knew how to rock! But this wasn't the funniest part; he also had a hickie on his neck that was a little too spherical to have been real, a more believable scenario being that it was self-inflicted with a Henry roll-along vacuum cleaner attachment.

Last but not least there were a couple at the front hanging onto the front rail and headbanging, making them somewhat resemble caged monkeys; one was wearing a Scream mask, and the other with a pair of his Dads pants on his head. Hey, perhaps it's like in Back To The Future 2 when all the kids of the future wear their jeans inside out…only in a nearer future, that this young maniac has obviously witnessed for himself, the kids are wearing, erm…pants…on their heads.

OK, so Consumed finished off and left, and Nerf Herder ambled onstage to set up their equipment. That's the great thing about gigs this small, the band have to do it for themselves. But it's when they start playing that you realise just how important roadies are, because tonight's set-up was pretty awful.

There was nothing wrong with the quality of the song's or of Nerf Herder's performance, it's just that you couldn't actually make any of the songs out the rumble and distortion was so bad. Now some people may call this 'raw', but I call it a sloppy sound set-up. The kids didn't seem to care too much though; they all went nuts to even the popiest of songs like 'Vivian' and '5000 Ways To Die'.

With it being such a small venue many of tonight's crowd frequented the stage at various intermissions. One standout moment occurring just as the band was about to play 'Pantera Fans In Love' when about eight or so kids got up on stage. This, for some reason, prompted singer/guitarist Parry Gripp to ask one school-uniformed lad if he wanted to play the song for him; of course he obliged and played away. This resulted in an obviously over-excited schoolboy snapping one of Perry's guitar strings and sent to the back of the stage to re-string like some naughty, well…schoolboy.

After playing some songs from their first album and from their latest E.P. 'My E.P', the guitar was re-strung and this kid decided to give it yet another go, the cheeky blighter! But Parry didn't seem to mind and they got through 'Courtney' with no problems.

The stage-diving was pretty varied with the kid in the Scream mask getting up onstage a bit too often creating a somewhat disconcerting atmosphere for the band, and various people diving from a small sort of wall thing in the middle of the room right onto the mosh-pit. This created all sorts of havoc and resulted in one unruly young sprout getting physically ejected from the hall, much to my personal amusement.

This took everyone's attention away from the band for a while, but Nerf Herder weren't daft, they knew how to win the attention of these kids once more by announcing that they were going to play the theme music from Buffy The Vampire Slayer…after the next song. When they did play everyone went nuts and didn't care about the ejected youth outside who by this point was still arguing with the brutish security guard who threw him out.

The rest of the set went well, with lots of smiles and laughter from Perry for forgetting the words to 'Pervert' and a few too many inane grins from bassist, Justin Fischer for who knows what.

The gig ended with the majority of the kids getting onstage for some reason, making the scene resemble the end of the Royal Variety Performance. So Nerf Herder played their final song surrounded by children, which was sweet in a Dick Van Dyke kind of way.

Then one by one they started to leave the stage, with some taking advantage of the open microphone left in front of them; and with the chance to address a room full of volatile young minds, the power to be heard by a couple of hundred people, one young man could only think to say "…YEAH!" And believe me, there was a pause before he thought of saying that.

david twomey

Got something to add or comment on?
Click here to discuss it in the eyemachine reviews forum.