Caught in the Crossfire

Fucked Up
Rolo Tomassi

The Electric Ballroom

04.03.09

After a duo of killer sets from Rolo Tomassi and Fucked Up where Rolo were not shy of turning the volume up to maximum and Fucked Up’s Damien traversed the crowd and scaled the heights of the monitors, The Bronx had some work to do. This is a band who clearly don’t worry about other acts ‘stealing their thunder’ or putting on performances that are worthy of headline slots in themselves.

The members of The Bronx are just not worriers. And they certainly don’t seem to feel like what they do is ‘work’. In fact, singer Matt Caughthran has a perpetual grin glued to his face for their entire set. The Bronx kick out the jams when they play and good music oozes from their pores along with a sense of fun and a feeling of ‘fuck it, let’s do this’ exuding from the stage with no sense of elitism or pretence of being better than anyone else.

With more joyous three-minute slices of pure rock and roll perfection than most bands with three albums under their belts, they prove themselves worthy of the headline slot. From the abrasive ‘Shitty Future‘ to their-most-famous-song ‘History’s Stranglers‘ through ‘Heart Attack American‘, the drummer’s perfect pounding, bassist’s punchy attack, killer riffs and feel-good shouty vocals are unrelenting. Caughthran’s gleeful drawl provides much-needed interludes between the riotous music-making and he berates shitty mainstream music at every opportunity.

As he fights the corner for truly good music and those who follow it, ‘Knifeman‘ kicks in and the lyrics “I want to be original; I want to be surrounded by art” have never seemed so pertinent. As a pre-cursor to the band’s slowest (yet still live favourite) track ‘White Guilt‘, Miley Cyrus bears the brunt of bad feeling with Caugthran rounding off this particular rant – “one day she will kill herself, ladies and gentlemen” – to cheers from the crowd and excitement arising due to the impending musical and lyrical genius. The Bronx are fun. And they’re good. A winning combination by anyone’s standards.

Winey G.