First up tonight are The Death Set, with an infectious electro-pop funk that eases the crowd into the gig spirit. Johnny Siera’s vocals may be spread too thinly to distract from the fact that every song is just one electronica loop played over and over again, but if The Death Set are just so much pop-punk fizz, then it’s enjoyable fizz. Like candy floss they are sugary and insubstantial, their light-rock strains fading from memory almost as soon as they’re over, but enjoyable while they last.
For half an hour, the crowd is mildly entertained by their poppy electro with some interestingly brattish vocals, as The Death Set bounce along like a cut-price Hellogoodbye, or a sanitised Enter Shikari. They’re custom-made to fill the awkward support slot for electro-rock bands and, if you bump into them on the next Hellogoodbye/Enter Shrikari tour, then you’re sure to have an enjoyable half an hour while waiting for the main event - but you probably won’t be rushing out to buy their CD afterwards.
Toronto hardcore mob Fucked Up aren’t an obvious choice of support for Mindless Self Indulgence. Hardcore has a tendency to sound similar, especially when it’s a hardcore band the majority of tonight’s crowd have probably never heard before. To make matters worse, Fucked Up specialise in five-minute-plus hardcore epics. By all rights, they should bomb with any fans of MSI’s ADD-friendly punk bullets. However, Fucked Up win over the crowd by being ridiculously entertaining. This is largely thanks to semi-naked, man-mountain frontman Damian Abraham, who spends the entire set at the barricades, dipping his microphone not only into the front rows, but leaning across the crowd to find that one person in the fourth row who’s singing along, and thrusting the microphone into their face.
When he’s not getting up close and personal with the crowd, Damian is showcasing surprising charisma, winning over the crowd with a furious rant against “all those people from high school.” Cliché it may be, but it earns Fucked Up the biggest cheer of the night so far.
Set-highlight is the beery call-and-response anthem ‘Crusades.’ It may be partially mangled by the dodgy support-slot sound system, but it’s so ferociously catchy that the crowd are soon shouting along to the few lines they can decipher, and rewarding Fucked Up’s efforts with the first real circle pit of the night.
Tonight, Fucked Up achieved that most difficult of things: entertaining a room full of people who probably wouldn’t listen to this sort of music by choice. Judging by how well they went down with this crowd, attending a Fucked Up headlining show should be high on your list of priorities if you’re a fan of hardcore.
And then it’s time for the main event. Headlining act Mindless Self Indulgence will be getting a British Citizenship if they’re over on these shores much longer! But tonight’s performance, their third London show of the year, is something a bit special: not only is it a Kerrang Awards-sponsored show, but it’s a very intimate performance, with only 300 tickets going on sale. For all those who saw them play the 3000-capacity London Roundhouse last month, it’s a novelty to walk into the venue and actually be able to see the stage.
From the moment the stage lights go down, it’s panto all the way, as a stirring, olde-worlde refrain is pumped over the speakers and the shadowy figures of bassist Lyn-Z and guitarist Steve take up position either side of the stage. They lurk in darkness for a few moments, before stepping into the spotlights simultaneously in an unashamedly over-the-top display that is greeted with explosive cheers. This is followed by the sight of frontman Jimmy Urine wandering unceremoniously onstage,
pottering disinterestedly around while the front rows scream themselves silly, and then, as the heavily-distorted opening riffs of alternative club-hit ‘Shut Me Up’ kicks in, he explodes into life, spin-kicking, twirling his cheerleader baton and launching himself, not into the crowd, but onto the heads of some photographers who were unlucky enough to get in his way.
And it’s here where MSI excel tonight. True, Urine may miss out half of the lyrics, and their ‘live’ performance may be packed with so many synths that the bassist and guitarist have to invent things to do during the long stretches when they don’t have to play a note - but as performers, MSI are unrivalled. You can see decent musicians another night - tonight, it’s all about bassist Lyn-z backbending down to the floor while still playing her bass; Jimmy’s hilarious between-song banter (which includes baiting the crowd that being a rockstar is his “job” and tonight’s he’s too lazy to do his job, before making the audience sing 90% of ‘Faggot’) and Steve sneering and sticking his nose up at the crowd like a caricature of the arrogant rockstar.
Urine concludes matters by dancing to ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business,’ his miming growingly increasingly over-the-top until he’s hamming it up like a first year drama student and security are looking completely baffled.
This may very soon be the longest tour in history, and Jimmy’s trademark crazy hair may be in danger of getting up and walking off his head if the tour stretches for many more months, and perhaps we’ve heard this setlist too many times already this year - but MSI make up for it all by being genuinely entertaining. And as long as they keep their audience entertained, they’ll be able to fill venues much larger than students’ unions,’ for however much longer the U.K. gets MSI for.
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Mindless Self Indulgence at University London Student's Union (Live)
