The Sheffield Scenester

As the Indian summer draws to an end and Britney Spears packs out the Arena, I made my way down to The Plug to see Roaming Son who tonight were ably supported by a couple of bands that were new to me, namely The Radiacs and the first band of the night, Dirty Fortune.

They are in fact a four piece from Sheffield whose most striking feature at this point seemed to be the guitar strap worn by their lead singer, decorated in the stars and stripes of the American flag it really drew attention to itself. I was impressed before they had even knocked out a single chord, no mean feat, but it was one hell of an accessory! Still once they started playing they were pretty impressive as well, very much a Manchurian sound to their material, but without the arrogant swagger to their show. Though they do dispense with the technical wizardry of a band like Section 60 and instead opt for a more back to basic rock ‘n’ roll slant on everything, really quite an enthralling combination. With this particular style of be-bop grind, tracks like ‘Sex Offender’ just sat perfectly with the crowd tonight. The venue itself wasn’t exactly packed, but as their set drove on more people filtered in from outside, until by the time it came to their closing couple of numbers, ‘In Good Time’ and ‘On my Knees’ they seemed to have acquired a whole new fan base. The closing song was probably their crowning glory as it was crammed full of thunderous pounding riffs from beginning to end and summed up all the positives of these guys, not that they had any negative points to speak of, and I did love that guitar strap!

Like I said the room was getting pretty full, but it was unlike any crowd I’d seen at The Plug for a long, long time, there were literally rows of the same T shirt everywhere you looked and they weren’t kids in the crowd, these were a slightly more mature crowd. My first thought was “At least I’m not the oldest one!” but part of me was getting really psyched by this as you could feel the energy in the room building, the proverbial sh*t was about to hit the proverbial fan, big time!

Standing in the DJ booth with Russ Frisby (Cut Your Wings singer/Tivoli bass player), both of us looking at a double bass leaning in the corner wondering what was coming next when The Radiacs burst onto the stage, for that brief moment we just stood there gob smacked! The motliest crew imaginable began one of the most incredible sets either of us had seen in ages! With guitarist Andy Barrott dressed like Lemmy, a bass player slapping the hell out of his double bass, a drummer tattooed from head to toe and a lead singer, in the shape of Dale Williams, who spent the whole set snarling and growling through his vocals, it really was a sight to behold! But the music itself was incredible, apparently it’s a little known genre called Psychobilly Rock, which as far as I could make out was a case of make as much coherent noise as possible in the shortest possible time.....absolutely brilliant!

They flew through at least a dozen songs, maybe more, but even at that speed you could recognize chords, structure and rhythm, it was amazing, nothing short of brilliant! They did a few covers in a style that is definitely their own, one that stuck in my mind was ‘Babylon’s Burning’, originally a song by The Ruts (I actually bought that when it originally came out in 1979), but in typical Radiacs style they pimped it up with a rock-a-billy riff! Of their own compositions, ‘She’s My Witch’ really was the dogs b*ll*x, as it seemed to have distinct echoes of the Billy Fury classic ‘Wonderous Place’. All the while the T shirt clad audience who essentially were some of the most die hard fans I’ve seen in ages danced, bopped, bounced and swayed along to everything, still when it came to their last track, a cover of Hank Mizell’s 1958 novelty track ‘Jungle Rock’, the crowd went ballistic, it really was a moment to treasure. These guys, without a shadow of a doubt pulled off one of the best gigs I have seen all year, in fact, if that was the last gig I ever saw I’d die a very happy man!

To say I, like the rest of the crowd, were pretty exhausted after that was an understatement, but with that level of energy around the room I felt totally wired! Now it was time for Roaming Son, a band we’d briefly seen down at La Floret quite by accident.......so it was good to finally catch them playing in a big venue. Like The Radiacs before them, Roaming Son played rock ‘n’ roll, but this was a far more polished and smoother ride than their support. Of course the main difference tonight was since their La Floret gig they had acquired a drummer, back then they were in the process of looking for one and this addition gave their already formidable modern slant on traditional rock a deeper resonance. As ever it was the track ‘Rock ‘N’ Roller’ that really took your breath away, that and Mark Lyall’s skill on guitar as he ran the length and breadth of his fret just to make sure he didn’t miss a single note. It really was the sort of performance you’d expect to hear from an overzealous metal head, but this was 100% Sheffield rock ’n’ roll, and from that perspective it was faultless.

It has to be said though, despite a solid show from these guys they did have the misfortune of following one of the most mind blowing live shows I’ve seen in a long, long time so they were always up against it from the very beginning! But with a good loyal crowd behind them and the b*lls to stand their ground you couldn’t really fault their performance.

A great night, no, an amazing nights entertainment with all three delivering, but when all is said and done, The Radiacs stole the show hands down!

Words & Photos by Geoff Buckthorpe