The Peel Sessions Live
Queen Elizabeth Hall,The South Bank Centre, London
19th March 1999
John Peel‘s here! John fucking Peel’s here! And he’s still the coolest old guy in England! For his Peel Sessions Live gigs, he’s chosen to host a Digital Hardcore Night! AT THE QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL! How the fuck does that work?
It’s all seated, y’see, as are we all when Christoph de Babalon does his extended noise track. Hard to describe this kind of stuff, but it makes Whitehouse seem like little kids who wanted to be in Kiss but couldn’t play guitar. Swathes of that old standby, the sheet metal grinding sound, cut through a twenty-minute patchwork curtain of found sounds, hiss, fuzz, distortion, and fucked-up beats that only stay long enough for you to notice them leaving. This, you see, is Art, and very good Art at that. We all sit respectfully in the presence of Art, though some of us have big cheesy grins on our faces that threaten to split our heads asunder each time a particularly nice frequency drills through our ears.
That was Art. Last time next band up, Shizuo, played, he was sonic terrorism. Tonight, he’s (or rather, they’re, given that he is joined tonight by two girls, in a kind of DHR equivalent of the Human League) Pop. That sounds like sonic terrorism. Tonight, we get no pissed-up riffing from “Smoke On The Water” between tracks, and more tracks that sound… God forbid, no… like Actual Songs. “LSD made a mess of me” goes one, and a damn good one it is too. Like labelmate Bomb 20, Shizuo does suffer from the fact that he looks like he’s enjoying this far too much for it to count as either Art or Sonic Terrorism, but quite frankly by this point so are we, and we therefore have to conclude that we are in the position of not giving a flying fuck. Shizuo, despite the lack of rock histrionics that characterised his recent Garage show, Rocks. Like A Bastard (or rather, Like Three Bastards, given etc.). Sitting down now appears to be optional, but hey, it’s the interval, so let’s buy beer!
Post-interval, and it’s Atari Teenage Riot‘s turn. And boy, do they take it! Fuck me, I’ve seen Conflict be less punk than this! “Deutschland (has gotta die)!”, “Not Your Business”, “P.R.E.S.S.” all come at us like some napalm in the morning, and the ghost of Crass is (gladly) waiting in the wings. From the moment Alec Empire (rock as fuck in his leather trousers), Hanin Elias (punk as fuck and pogoing like there’s no tomorrow), Carl Crack (all skullpainted and being more scary than that bloke out of The Prodigy ever dreamed of being) and Nic Endo (Kabuki-painted, gorgeous and so fucking in control it’s just not true) take the stage, The Queen Elizabeth Hall knows it’s not really the right place to deal with this. Seating arrangements can fuck right off; there’s a moshpit between the front row and the stage. Now we understand why they had hard security guards rather than the old people in suits they normally use. Still, ATR go on, getting better and better, louder and louder, more righteously fervent with every track, until we have proper gig venue conditions- stagedivers, a moshpit, security well undermanned to deal with real people… Everything your older brother/sister ever told you about punk suddenly comes true, only louder, and electronic- Sorry, my wording ain’t too good right now, but I’m thinkin’ back to the gig, and, quite frankly, words fail me. Which is kind of appropriate, seeing as how the only criticism anyone could ever have of ATR is that their English is flawed (giving rise to such classics as “Wake Up! Wake Up! Get off your spleen!” but hey, still a fuck of a lot better than my German) but, you know, even Crass never had perfect English, and if you want a refernce point, then fuck all your Techno landmarks, fuck all your Gabba shit, Crass is the closest there’s ever been to this.
Sooner or later, it all has to end in chaos, and the audience invade the stage. This wouldn’t be quite so remarkable if it wasn’t the Queen Elizabeth Hall, but it is, so it is (and so on.). The gig is called to a halt, despite the wishes of the band (Empire and Elias shouting “We want a fucking riot!” long after the PA’s been switched off) and restarts haltingly (how’s that for a… a… sorry, I forget the fucking word, but one of those…) until it stops again. (God, I’m becoming tedious in my old age.) In short, if you were there, you know how great this was. If you weren’t, then even if I managed to resurrect W.S.Burroughs (R.I.P.Uncle Bill) from his (untimely, even at his age) grave, he wouldn’t be able to explain how good it was. The moral of this story? If ATR ever play anywhere even vaguely near you- GO SEE THEM. Then, in the words of Alec Empire: “HUNT DOWN AND KILL THE NAZIS!”
-Deuteronemu 90210 and His Performing Vegetable Orchestra-
