Some gigs are just ill-starred from the outset. The trick is to pull them around so you remember them for the right reasons.
Tonight is a prime example – first, the show underwent an enforced last-minute move from The Regal to The Wheatsheaf, missing the local music listings in the process. And second, the scheduled headliners Xmas Lights were forced to pull out at even shorter notice. All of which meant an audience of fewer than twenty, including support act, soundman and promoter, turned out to see Pulled Apart By Horses.
Boy, did the rest of you miss out – they’re easily one of the best live bands we’ve seen this year (and we’ve seen a lot of bands this year). What Pulled Apart By Horses delivered wasn’t just a stunning performance, but rather a salutary lesson to all bands on how you play to a room of ten people. The mirror image of the poseur band who get a bit of hype from NME, then can’t be bothered to perform unless there are more than fifty people in the audience, PABH take the opportunity to crank their amps up even louder and shove their set right down your throat. Guitarists Tom Hudson and James Brown are everywhere: on top of the speaker stacks, mounting their guitars on the venue floor, crashing into one another on stage, as if they’ve discovered that kinetic energy is a cure for cancer.
Oh yes, almost forgot the music. In short, it’s a majestic blend of Unwound-esque post-hardcore aggression combined with the exuberance of early Fugazi: they may just be the natural successors to the much-missed Cat On Form, before they downed tools and Steve Ansell hit the big time with Blood Red Shoes. In places, it’s almost – almost – like watching Nation of Ulysses in a tiny bar in some backwoods town in 1992, and we can offer little higher praise than that.
Next time this band play in Oxford, get a front row seat.