Mindless Self Indulgence
It’s been a tempestuous day. It’s raining cats and dogs and
I’ve just come from the ill-tempered Armageddon that was the Chelsea
I find comfort in the dark shroud of a half full Forum.
Arriving in time to catch about two minutes of the Dead Betas, it’s hard to
form an impression. However, their Bandcamp is here.
Taking Haley are up next and are pretty much the dream
support act. Everything they do seems designed to warm up an audience for
someone else.
The crowd are encouraged to wave, clap and sing along, which
they are happy to do. The band are enthusiastic, glad to be here and come
across a bit like a lightweight version of Ash, but without any immediately
killer tunes. They know their audience and they do a respectable job.
And then...arriving full pelt and not letting up for so much
as a second, Mindless Self Indulgence are among us.
The crowd effectively implodes into a mass of moshing guys
and screaming girls. It’s a tsunami of hormones and testosterone which suddenly
occupies about the half space as previously as the kids pile forward. There is
then a great wash of humanity as lighter and more sensitive souls are expelled
from the seething mass.
A band like this is only as good as their front man and James
Euringer, aka Jimmy Urine is the best of the bunch. This man never rests for
even the merest second, a non-stop blur of flailing limbs, spiky hair and
obscene gestures.
He is joined by Steve Righ? sporting a bandana and beard, and
clearly enjoying himself by rather camping it up, even though he looks like a
grizzled biker. Bassist Lyn-Z is relatively restrained in comparison, only
occasionally getting the limelight when Urine passes her the microphone to
scream into. Drums are thumped by Kitty, tonight dolled up like a member of
Sigue Sigue Sputnik.
But it’s all about Jimmy Urine. He dashes around the stage,
teetering on a series of podiums hidden between the other musicians. He keeps
up a non-stop monologue of insult, off colour humour and audience-baiting. The
ruder he is about them, the more they love it. Which is part of the joke.
Songs pass by in a blur and I must admit that the actual
musical content rather passes me by – I’m too busy watching the singer’s antics
to care about what he’s actually singing.
An indication of the highbrow nature of tonight’s
proceedings can be appreciated when, after announcing that the band will be
playing in Paris the following evening, Urine gets the crowd to chant along “Fuck
The French!”. At another point, he balances awkwardly on a podium the better to
repeatedly moon us with his skinny white ass.
After an hour or so, the law of diminishing returns starts
to set in. The band are as full on and outrageous as previously, but the crowd
seem exhausted by it all.
The second encore is rather bizarre. The band leaves the
stage apart from Steve, who invites various members of the crowd up on stage to
play his guitar. They can’t. Steve starts to sing “Born Free”. There is some
confusion and it becomes clear that this is indeed the end, and the others
aren’t coming back.
Mindless Self Indulgence live up to their name in a good
way. It’s great to let off steam, be a little silly and just make some noise.
And I’m sure that somewhere that Urine and co are getting
some French kids to chant “Fuck L’Anglais!”
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