Sunday 25 January 2009

Fight Like Apes @ London Camden Koko

The last time Breaking More Waves came across Fight Like Apes they were performing to a virtually empty basement club in Brighton. Tonight as the screen that hides the stage from the auditorium slowly rises, the band walk out to see a rammed and intoxicated Camden Koko. The volume of punters flushed with excitement has little to do with the bands presence however, and more to do with the fact that this is Friday night, it’s Club NME, it’s gone midnight and extravagant self indulgence of an alcoholic kind has proceeded this moment.

Fight Like Apes are ready to storm it though. The bands frenzied, quirky, occasionally disturbing bombardment of synth and bass combined with the strident vocal of hair tossing MayKay suits a night like this. One moment they are ramming out a volatile cover of Lightsabre Cock Sucking Blues by Mclusky, with its lyrics of “Nicotine stained on account of her crutch, and I’m aching from fucking too much.” The next MayKay is ascending the speaker stack and playing with the hair of girls in the front row. This is a band who want to sonically and visually grab you by the tits and balls, and possibly yank them off. They even ask the crowd to boo for them, which everyone is happy to do. Bass player Tom salutes the masses, this is a two way satisfaction.

The gig climaxes with Lend Me Your Face, probably the quickest speed fuck the audience have ever had, before Battlestations explodes in a screaming orgy of samples and electronica, the band throwing their keyboards to the floor. The audience have been taken, indie cool lost in a smiling mosh pit at the front. Whether the next morning anyone will remember this hardcore unrelenting aural gang bang may well depend upon the extent of the hangover, but no doubt Fight Like Apes satisfied in a bruising and wonderful way.

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