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No Shame – King Edward
the VII – 07.05.05
Those who can; do, those
who can’t; teach. Those who see a gap in the market for in your
face, down your throat, slap you in the chops Heavy Mental Metal,
form a band called No Shame and travel the wilds of East Anglia
making local yokels deaf and dance. But not necessarily in that
order.
It’s Saturday night at
the King Edward the VII, it’s one of those *authentic* pubs.
It’s one of those pubs that if it were footwear, would be a hob
nailed boot heading for your groin. The only concession to modernity
is the fact that the toilets actually have a toilet, rather than a
hole in the ground and a bucket of ashes.
The walls have been
painted in Arctic Camouflage - just in case a deserter from the
Russian Army needs to hide in a heavy metal gig. I don’t know why
the walls have been painted like this – but then so have the
radiators. It’s…odd.
If Laurence Llewellyn
Bowen walked in, he’d get lamped. Possibly by one of the Gargoyles
hanging over the bar – Gargoyles (I hasten to add) that I’m not
quite sure aren’t actually alive…
Someone has tried to fit
far too much equipment at one end of the room. It’s been stuffed
in there like Marshall-Peavey Tetris. In fact there’s so much
equipment down there, you seriously think this band is taking the
piss. Until, that is, they
turn on the smoke machine, fire up the lights and then you realise
they mean it!!
Suddenly there’s a
crowd. Far from being plastered over the back wall like the guy from
the Maxell Advert, this bunch are inching forward in a George A
Romero shuffle, their lipless mouths not intoning “brains”, but
instead intoning “metal” and bloody hell there’s a whole huge
pack of ‘em. It seems like No Shame are a draw in these here
parts: suddenly the place is a whirl of tattoos, bleached hair,
questionable perms and sweaty skin. Some guy is banging his head
like he’s trying to whip the crowd into shape, a crazy Metal
Overseer driving the slaves on to dance and cheer. I catch
occasional glimpses of the band behind him as they grind out their
foundry fresh gleaming slabs of British steel and finest American
Artillery.
This aint like covers
bands are supposed to be.
Cards on the table, I
hate covers bands. Lame never-beens with all the artistic ability of
an aardvark whining away in the back of a pub while you’re trying
to have a decent conversation. “And this is one by Robbie.” Oh
do Fuck Off.
No Shame on the other
hand…. well they’re an Ethos Band, rather than a Covers Band.
Their Ethos is to bring
you Played on Eleven Metal.
It
ain’t clever, but it is big.
A Fuck off kidney
rattling huge sound. Two guitarists for that classic “Well it was
Alright for effin’ Judas Priest” attack - one rock solid,
looking like a brick shit-house balanced on top of another brick
shit-house, all Rugby player shoulders, and Billy Whizz lead. The
other metal monster is a curly haired Mack Truck with a Jackson
Grill, a Motley Crue tee- Shirt who sounds like Satan’s Wasp
trapped inside Hell’s Jam Jar. I’m thinking, no one plays this
loud in somewhere this small do they?
But No Shame do.
The singer has all the
moves, he has all the swagger, and the notes needed
to carry this off with conviction – he ain’t playing at this,
this ain’t his Saturday band – this mother came here to put on a
mothering show and by jove he mothering well is gonna. He jumps, he
sways, he stands on top of the monitor – the only thing missing is
the “Hello Budokan! Are you Ready to Rock?” Because saying
“Hello Norwich” would have just been silly….
They rip through a set
that you could make up in your head just by dint of the fact that
the Ethos is Metal and the bands that do that best would by
definition have to be represented – so it’s pretty much
all your acronyms AC/DC, UFO, MSG: your one word identifiers
Priest, Metallica, Crue and three glorious tacks by one and only Led
(pause for reverence) Zeppelin played with such attack and such
verve that you suddenly know what all the fuss was about when these
songs were played by the real bands.
And I guess at the end of
the day, that’s what counts about these dusted off gems of songs
– it’s not just that they’ve been *played*….oh no, *anyone*
could do that. What No Shame do is take these songs by the neck and
squeeze every last dynamic out of them, they don’t treat the songs
like classic cars that you’re not allowed to breathe on; they get
inside each one of these songs, they floor them, delaminate their
tyres and barrel roll the motherfuckers into a ditch. Then they get
out of the wreckage, spit out the grass and mud, and stomp back to
the starting grid to take the next one out for a spin.
No Shame have no safety
net, and that about the best thing you can ask for in a band that
won’t play their own material.
Recommended.
Oh and by the way lads... I have
the 1980’s on the phone…they’d like their heavy metal back
Paul
Ebbs.
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