Bristol
10 January 2025
Support for The Jesus Lizard‘s eagerly awaited trip to The Fleece in Bristol came from that city’s own purveyors of mutant post-punk hip hop, Lice.
Having not seen them since their extraordinary set at the Bristol Psych Fest back in the summer of 2017 where it was like The Beastie Boys fronting The Birthday Party. Since then, they seem to have picked up a violinist / keyboardist who happily fills their already teeming soundscapes with a few jagged edges.
They were already on when we arrived, vocalist Alastair Shuttleworth prancing like a loon and pulling questionable shapes as the band stretched and strained around him. On first listen to the latest album, Third Time At The Beach, it seemed rather considered and measured, but that is the complete opposite of the muscular cacophony that emanates from the stage.It is a crazed confection that finds the Mogadon-infused rapping skittering and echoing over the complex percussive rhythms and beautifully fluent bass chords. The Birthday Party influences have given way to something more, and although bassist Gareth Johnson still sports a dashing moustache and lovely suit, the Tracey Pew comparisons are pretty redundant and they are covering much more ground with Silas Dilkes‘s spikey guitar textures and the wibbling synths filling in the faintest of gaps.
The past seven years has found them a more relentless, frenetic and rhythmically fluid beast, with a drum-driven swagger that rumbles our bellies and makes us smile at the same time. It seems funny that the complexity of Bruce Bardsley‘s drum patterns is kind of ignored by the rest of the band; but when they drop to a “Hip Priest” pace, feedback violin ironing out our earholes, it is a potent and heady stew. The vocals are echoed to Hell’s infinity at points; and rather like the drummer, the rest of the band ignores Alastair’s stumbling and gurning, just pushing on with the ever-spreading sonic mischief, shrieks running through our bodies like they are trying to electrocute us. When you listen hard, the bass is carrying some sweet melodies while the guitar scatters shards of glass across the ever-evolving maelstrom, seeming to seethe when a track ends, steaming from the effort. Lice are just growing in dynamism and confidence and if you are in Bristol on the 27 January, they will be at the Louisiana. Go and check them out.Thankfully, the Jesus Lizard is one of those groups that can follow anybody or anything, and when they stroll on to rapturous applause, on the whole the last twenty-six years has been pretty kind to them. Guitarist Duane Denison, bassist David Wm Sims and drummer Mac McNeilly are all rocking the silver fox look, trim, svelte and smart, while vocalist David Yow looks like a disturbed gremlin.
The group appears happy to see such a welcome and after a brief hello lurches into “Seasick” from the latest album. The years just seem to drop away as the song crawls out of the speakers and before you know it, smack in the middle of “Gladiator”, Yow is already launching himself into the crowd. I guess some things never change and he is handed around for a minute or so as the rest of the group carries on regardless. Yow’s example sets off a conveyor belt of enthusiastic participants and the front few rows are awash with sweat, thrown beer and items of clothing.The group though is just so compelling; you need four sets of eyes so that you can watch each member specifically. The way Duane twists his wrists into such awkward positions for the most curious of chord patterns, the sheer relentlessness of Mac’s drum attack where you feel he is doing the work of two drummers, yet appears so effortless; and Sims’s thousand-yard stare across the audience as his fingers spider up and down the fretboard. It is mesmerising and all through it Yow is prowling the stage, flobbing and leering, thrusting himself through The Fleece’s two stage-adjacent pillars, heckling and cajoling the audience as his vocals spew and spatter.
The interplay between the three musicians is telepathic now and the reaction from the audience when they start up an oldie is ecstatic. When Duane pulls out the slide for “Nub”, the sound is wild and the hairs on everybody’s arms stand up. They do play a good proportion of the new album, but there is the best part of two dozen tracks played tonight with their two encores having about eight tracks between them. The awkward up-strokes of “Destroy Before Reading” from Down and Yow almost sucking the microphone down his throat during “Mouthbreather” are stand-out moments; but really, the whole set is a tour de force. They even play a few from Shot, with “Thumper” a particular highlight. When Sims slows things down, they turn a little dangerous and Yow has more opportunity to eyeball the crowd, while there are moments where Duane is almost grooving, moving from side to side like he’s auditioning for The Shadows.I kept thinking of that John Peel quote about The Fall being “always the same, always different” and you could level that same comment at The Jesus Lizard. You know the basic ingredients, yet somehow each song is compelling and markedly different. Some may be a little slower, others a little more raucous, Yow may throw the mic on the floor and mouth the words, someone may become a little frustrated and try to kick the stage-divers off the stage; but whatever is happening, they are just so good.
Towards the end, after the first encore, things take a slightly jazzy detour before the second encore’s ramshackle run through “Thumbscrews”, “Alexis Feels Sick” from the new album and old faithful “Bloody Mary” from Pure. You can see that this has taken some effort out of the group and they are ready for a rest. Mac has been pouring water over his head all evening and the stage crew has been scuttling backwards and forwards ejecting overly ambitious stage invaders, reclaiming stolen mic stands and generally looking on aghast as the havoc unfolds.Somewhere towards the end, as Yow almost makes it to the sound desk over the heads of the audience, he thanks us for our support and to be honest, I think the audience would have taken him right through the streets of Bristol and on to Bath, such is the adulation.
We didn’t really know what to expect after fifteen years or whatever it has been; but we should really have known that it would be nothing short of awesome and that it was. Long may The Jesus Lizard reign.-Words: Mr Olivetti-
-Pictures: Michael Rodham-Heaps-
