The Underworld, London
08.07.08
Comeback Kid love the Underworld. It’s like a hometown venue for them despite the band being based in Canada. They have played there many a time but despite, or maybe because of, their familiarity with the place they always bring every shred of intensity they can to their performances here. As an homage to this place they hold in such high esteem, the band are recording their performance tonight for a live CD and when this is announced to the crowd everyone present is more than happy to participate in shoutalongs aplenty.
To say that it’s hot at this show is an understatement. Everybody in the venue is dripping with sweat from the second song in but this doesn’t do anything to dampen the enthusiasm for this band or to hold Comeback Kid back in any way shape or form. They are killing it from the moment they barge onstage to the glee of the rowdy audience who’ve been waiting a little longer than expected for them to appear.
The opener is Broadcasting… Perhaps not a raging classic as yet but a stormer of a new track and it powers up the crowd nicely. The rest of the set passes in a blur with a heady mix of old and new. Classics such as Talk Is Cheap and False Idols Fall prompt mass singalongs and new gems like Defeated whip the crowd up into a heated frenzy. Wake The Dead is clearly a highlight, as it always is, and foolishly I assume that this rousing anthem is their last track tonight (they have run over by twenty minutes after all). But Comeback Kid choose Final Goodbye to close the show and they do so in style, though let’s hope it’s not their final goodbye.
If I could see CBK play the Underworld once a week I would and I think most of the crowd at the gig tonight would be with me also. I think Comeback Kid might be up for it if it were feasible! As vocalist Andrew Neufeld rightly proclaims towards the end of their set tonight ‘This is what hardcore is all about.’
Winey G.