Categories
Live Reviews

Municipal Waste – Live

w/ Iron Lung
The Underworld,
London 11/12/08

Internet piracy is a great thing. With the increase of illegal downloads harming record sales, a lot of bands can only make a substantial wage from touring. With Christmas looming, everybody wants to take home a crust this festive season. The immediate effect of this is that loads of really decent bands from across the pond have packed up their gear and are going on full UK tours to snatch up your pennies before Santa arrives.

Leading the charge of this mass exodus of bands is the forever partying, Municipal Waste. A band more concerned with robbing your bottle of crimbo sherry than nicking your pennies. Having blown London apart so many times before, this city has almost become home turf to the Waste. The crowd is packed in tight at the Underworld and the fans, young and old, are chugging on their beers with nervous anticipation as they wait for the Virginia thrashers.

Seattle’s Iron Lung filled the support slot and Jesus-titty-fuckin-Christ they were good. A true assault on the senses from a duo that perform with such speed and venom. A perfect and surprisingly good band to get the rabid crowd going before Municipal Waste ignite the stage.

It only takes a couple of chords, played by axe man Ryan Waste, to send the lunatic crowd into a whirlwind frenzy. Opening as per usual with ‘Deathripper‘ the trademark beach inflatables loom over head as skinny punk after fat bastard metal-head begin to dive off the stage and rain down on the heads of the peeps in the pit. The Waste slam straight into ‘Sadistic Magician‘ and after that its nonstop chaos for the night. Municipal Waste churn out some of their best grooves from all 3 of their albums to a back drop of stage divers and beer fueled mayhem. ‘Unleash The Bastards‘, ‘Terror Shark‘ and ‘Blood Drive‘ all get an outing tonight with Tony Foresta (Vocals) barking orders at the crowd between tracks. Commanding everybody to “circle fuckin pit!” or “destroy the fucking place!” the crowd at the Underworld kindly oblige.

The night comes to a close with ‘Born To Party‘ and the inevitable “Municipal Waste are gona FUCK-YOU-UP!” chant from all the thrash elite in the pit. When you go and see a band like Municipal Waste it’s like being reunited with your family at Christmas. There are guys who you will always see there. Like the dude who always dresses up like the terror shark or that one guy who always throws up in the corner after way too much cider. Unfortunately, like most family reunions, after a couple of hours you get bored and want to leave. This ain’t my first Municipal Waste rodeo and I have a lot of time for the band and their music but I’ve seen it all before.

Municipal Waste dominate tonight with a show that has all the hallmarks of a great thrash gig but we get nothing new from their performance. Maybe a “detox” is in order before the Waste come at us again with something fresh, something new and something that will make us go utterly ape shit for these guys all over again.

Tom Lindsey