A View From The Back Of The Room: Evil Scarecrow

So yet another Evil Scarecrow gig and as is normal it was a cavalcade of laughs and downright silliness from the get go so after meeting with two of the Musipedia's good friends for a couple of drinks and some food we entered Clwb and settled in with a pint of Mws Pws Snowdonia Ale (sorry for all the Welsh folks Cymru Am Byth I'm afraid) and readied ourself for a good rocking and riotous rib-tickling.

We arrived at the venue a little too late to catch openers Franklin Mint but what we saw was a bit of psychedelic rock with some off beat vocals but their set was over far too quickly for me to make a judgement. So then as they cleared away a wait ensued, a chat with some of the bands and then the joyous sight of one Mr Brett Perry who arrived unannounced to a huge encore (from just us). Welsh metal at is finest was the order of the day from the next band who many will know are a bit special to us here at the Musipedia, Triaxis (8) stormed the stage to the now engrained opener Liberty, which has a video now attached to it, from the onset Giles drumming and Becky's bass paved the way with a thunderous assault in the backroom, on top of this was CJ rapid riffage and Glyn's sublime soloing topped by Krissie's as usual stunning vocals as the band roared through Sand And Silver, Stand Your Ground, the still brutal double hit of Victorious and Death Machine before Black Trinity finished, it was a short set gone in a flash but as always Triaxis showed how good they are, a longer set would have been nice though (still I'm sure we will be here again soon)

So another bit of a wait and it was time for the main feature, having followed Evil Scarecrow (9) almost since the beginning I love how the band have reached the lofty heights of drawing a huge crowd at Bloodstock but you are still able to see them in smaller venues like where we were tonight. With the new intro theme kicking in the band came on from the back of the crowd and with the usual fooling around at the beginning the band finally settled down and jumped straight into Rise. Now Evil Scarecrow are a parody band but musically they are always on top form even with two replacement members they didn't miss a trick. Now the replacement members were taking over guitar and keyboards for Brother Pain and Princess Luxury respectively who are on maternity leave from the band, these 'new' members were the towering undertaker Meister Klaus Von Unterschlafen who hails from Germany via Nottingham and their ivory tickler is Chucky The Bastard who must have been knackered at school the next day (joke guys). They slotted right in with Dr Hell, Kraven Moredeth and Monty Blitzfist's madness before we got the first of the bands well known fan partcipation songs with the zero gravity mosh pit in Space Dementia, which ended with some our number chanting 'sheep' as a dirty word (it's Wales folks) which led to the band unveiling new song Sheep which was just the word repeated at speed but got the loudest cheer of the night.

More crowd interaction with Dance Of The Cyclops which got us all waltzing on the beer drenched floor, yummy. Much of the set was drawn from their last album but they did throw in the odd classic in the shape of Morbid Witch (one of my favourites) and their self confessed third best song, below Sheep and the crustacean one, Robototron where the perfect robot squares were impressive. The self depreciating humour of the band is why they are endearing Dr Hell especially complaining that he was going to get the giggles and telling us to watch as he fucks up Brother Pain's solos on Galacticus. Things descended into farce at the finale of War And Seek as most the mentions of war were changed to 'sheep' which caused Dr Hell to totally and utterly fall apart on stage. After we marched during the end of the song things finished in there normal way with the band bemoaning a lack of curtain to hide behind for the encore which was the now legendary Crabulon which featured the crab himself, sans claws I might add, they were left in the van adding to the ridiculousness of the bands set. As we scuttled left and right the end finally came and yet again we were all elated, ecstatic and totally exhausted at the end but we wouldn't have it any other way. They are a superb band so go and see Evil Scarecrow if you can they are guaranteed to cure what ails you!!