Saturday 05/11/05 The Bloodhound Gang, Electric Eel Shock, The Lucky Nine @ Cardiff University

For an act that are becoming an increasingly popular namedrop amongst alt-rock royalty – Dave Grohl being cheerleader in chief - The Lucky Nine have somehow found themselves on a bill with Osaka heavy metal mentalists Electric Eel Shock and frat party jock rockers, The Bloodhound Gang. It’s a peculiar line up, and one that doesn’t really benefit The Lucky Nine’s art-rock aspirations. If the slightly pompous title of their recent debut album isn’t a giveaway – ‘True Crown Foundation Songs: Hymns Of History And Hidden Ritual’ -, The Lucky Nine don’t have any songs about porn stars, The Simpsons, or anal sex. Or if they do, they’re saving them for the difficult second album.  Instead there’s a strong Tool and Cure flavour to many of the songs played tonight.

 

The Lucky Nine are like a scaled-down alt-rock supergroup. The quintet features A cohort Daniel P Carter on guitar, Hundred Reasons frontman Colin Duran on vocals and former Cable drummer Richie Mills. To say the sound like an amalgamation of all of these fine acts is no disservice. Racing through half a dozen songs off their debut album, the highlights include ‘Hibernate’, ‘Vessel & Vine’ and a ferocious ‘How Have Things Changed’. It’s been said before, but their live performances capture their firm grasp of the loud bit, even louder bit dynamic of their songs. It’s an effective trick and hard to fathom why more bands don’t use it.

 

So on to Electric Eel Shock who – to their credit – manage to work their way through the entire gamut of heavy metal clichés. Adventurous bassist Kazuto Maekawa spends most of his time off the floor boards, scaling 20 foot high speaker stacks like a cock rock Sir Edmund Hillary. He pauses only to deliver the hand of rock and pull faces at an audience that probably haven’t witnessed such impressive gurning since the last time James Hetfield picked up a microphone. Latest release, ‘Beat Me’, is merely an extension of the riff-cranking, stoner faced indie-rawk that Electric Eel Shock clearly have enormous fun making. Frontman, Aki Morimoto is chief culprit in the having-the-time-of-his-life stakes, his wide-eyed broken English no less endearing despite the band frequently slipping into pastiche and ten minute drum solos. Please gents, there’s an audience in front of you.

 

Aki Morimoto’s excitement is barely contained once he introduces headliners, The Bloodhound Gang. Behind the stage is a giant screen projecting messages throughout the gig. If a decade’s worth of puerile comedy about masturbation and diarrhoea isn’t already an indication, this band won’t change for anybody. Jimmy Pop commences the Welsh-baiting straight away, telling the crowd that he hopes the band perform better tonight than the rugby team – a reference to Wales’ 41-3 trashing at the hands of the New Zealand All Blacks earlier in the day. It doesn’t stop their – the masterful ‘This Band Suck Worse Than Your Rugby Team’ projection only generates more boos once they replace ‘Rugby Team’ with ‘Stereophonics’. 

 

It’s easy to forget that amongst the lurid pantomime, The Bloodhound Gang have some memorable songs. ‘Jackass’, ‘Lift Your Head Up High’ and ‘Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo’ prove there’s no abate in their popularity, or lyrical depths they won’t plunge to. The in-between song antics threaten to take over once bassist Evil Jared sheds his clothes.  A partial cover of Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Take Me Out’ is embarrassingly better than the original. It precedes ‘The Ballad Of Chasey Lane’, which stands up on lyrical merit alone.

 

Never to be outdone in the audience antagonising stakes, Jimmy Pop manages to get a room of mostly English students to partake in various anti-English chants. No mean feat, but political correctness isn’t really a consideration for a band who put an obese, naked man on the front cover of their latest album. A few water fights later and they’re clamouring for the tour bus.  ‘Roof Is On Fire’ – infamous for the "burn mother****er burn" refrain used in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 -and ‘You’re Pretty When I’m Drunk’ finish the set. Of course, not before a riotous ‘The Bad Touch’ – the song which sparked their all Frenchmen are gay theory all those moons ago. Battered, bruised and having consumed an entire case of WKD, they’re off to get bandaged up. Having dodged a hail of plastic pint cups and shoes all evening, Gigwise staggers off into the night a thousand brain cells lighter.