LIVE – Phoxjaw @Gullivers, manchester 28/6/23

The summer in Manchester usually sees rainy weather, off-season footy fans getting sunburnt and bands playing stadia & festivals rather than smaller club gigs, but tonight’s the exception with my fellow Bristolians Phoxjaw hitting the city for a show at ace Northern Quarter pub/venue Gullivers.

It’s rare at this place that the band bother to soundcheck, exit the stage through the crowd then come back on via the throng, but Phoxjaw seem unphased in doing so, despite the rabid excitement that greets them. In fact, it only seems to encourage the band to waste little time and from the introductory evermore and apples combo you can feel something is about to blow.

Now on second album notverynicecream, the quartet are established enough to bring a good following out on a Wednesday all primed and ready to throw down, and that’s what they do from the off. Helped by icecreamwitch containing a stomp that’s not a million miles away from fellow Bristolians IDLES, the four-piece follow it up with a black metal-level Half House that’s utterly raucous, making the floor bounce and the building quake.

The lilting, shoe-gazey Infinite Badness from debut record Royal Swan gives us a brief period of respite, before getting all doomy and making me wonder for about the 673rd time why the venue thinks glassware being allowed into the venue is a good idea as half-drunk pints on tables go flying.

Despite the chaos all around them, Phoxjaw remain focused on their musical assault and dressed in green velour that quite literally matches the drapes on stage, the band look quite presentable; a lovely lot that your mum wouldn’t be averse to you bringing home. That is until they introduce sungazer with ‘this is a song about the sun, the evil fucking cunt’ and veer from Cardiacs-eccentricity to brontosaurus-sized riffs at the drop of a hat. Marvellous stuff.

Guitarist Alex Share, half Eddie Izzard quips, half Bowie glam-cool, and frontman Danny Garland combine on a grungey and louche knives before another track off their sophomore record, tortoise, lulls us in with its dreamy haze before picking up the pace and creating a melee of flailing limbs down the front.

thelastmackerel (“this is a song about a fish”) gets the crowd chanting its “da-da-na-da-na-na-na refrain” with ease as it careers into a pounding riff and industrial vocal outro whilst Teething encourages some serious tops-off action in the pit. Despite the late hour, the closing Trophies In The Attic ensures everyone stays right to the end for one last dance before an absolutely dripping mob melt out onto a humid Oldham Street.

Phoxjaw have been one of those bands that I’ve been excited to catch live for quite some time and based on this first experience you’ll need to get onboard now or risk only being able to see them on a gigantotron from half a mile away. Mixing so many genres and styles, from the rawness of early Nirvana to frenetic Emperor-riffing to Type O winky darkness, Phoxjaw pull from so broad a musical pallette that you never quite know what’s coming next. A truly unique show from a terrifyingly talented four piece, and long may it continue.

UNDERTAKER – 1 deadMAN SHOW @Albert Hall, Manchester 3/7/23

It’s a bit of a different gig at The Albert Hall tonight as seats have been placed on the floor in the old Wesleyan chapel and the stage is stripped of the usual array of guitars and amps, replaced instead by a single stool and a high table. A legend is in town – this is Undertaker – 1 deadMan Show.

Many wrestlers have trodden the boards over the years – Mick Foley for one is a famous raconteur having toured his spoken word show after the success of his biographies, and you’d expect it too when a wrestler’s stock in trade (other than their physicality) is the gift of the gab. But the Undertaker? The man notorious for playing a mute behemoth for long periods of his career? It certainly seems odd on paper, but following his emotional rollercoaster of a Hall of Fame speech in 2022, it’s clear the man has a lot of tales to tell.

And here we are in the grandiose Albert Hall ready to hear those tales. Gigs at the venue at this time of year can be odd affairs as the huge stained glass windows let in so much sun that despite the religious setting being apt for the main man, it seems odd we’re about to see the Prince of Darkness in near-full daylight. But as a bottle of Jack Daniels is placed on stage by a crewmember, receiving a decent pop in the process (the bottle, not the stage-hand), and the bell tolls, the light doesn’t matter; the Deadman cometh.

Of course, ‘real life’ Taker is Texan Mark Calaway rather than an actual gravedigging, urn-worshipping dark destroyer, but that doesn’t make him any less imposing; sitting on the balcony, we feel like we’re only just higher than him as he strides on stage in hoodie, shades and combat trousers. Now 58, the rigours of a 30 year career aren’t slowing Taker down as he immediately endears himself to the crowd by making us honourary BSK (Bone Street Krew) members for the night.

The BSK are a key focal point for the night’s stories with the faction being well-known for some serious hell-raising in the 90s and early 2000s. Tales of women, drink and drugs certainly make this show an adult-oriented affair (meaning it’s a surprise to see a couple of young kids in attendance) and Taker doesn’t swerve a curse or two, most notably shutting down a heckler to our right who would NOT stop chuntering away throughout. I mean, who on Earth would heckle the Deadman? Anyway…

What’s striking throughout the show is how odd a career being a pro-wrestler must have been for these guys. Many of the BSK were massive human beings, six and a half feet plus of muscle and mayhem, travelling the globe, putting their bodies on the line to entertain the fans and in a time before smartphone cameras and the Internet, their downtime wasn’t tempered in any way shape or form.

It’s also notable that some of the stories feature those who fell foul in various ways to the excesses associated with pro-wrestling; Road Warrior Hawk, Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts and Brian Adams to name but three, but Taker is careful not to condemn. There’s no doubt the sport has changed a lot over the years and he was definitely of a very different era where the physical pain of competition was masked by alcohol and drugs of the prescribed and more illicit varieties. But that’s where the stories have come from, it’s their reason for being, so there can’t be any whitewashing, pretending it wasn’t part and parcel of the business. Work hard, play hard was the motto and Taker is not apologising for that at all.

I won’t go into the specifics of the tales told, for fear of spoiling it for others yet to attend, but needless to say Taker is hugely engaging and talks endearingly of his colleagues, whether that’s fellow wrestlers or WWE head honcho Vince McMahon. For someone who admits he always felt uncomfortable doing the talking, he’s certainly quick-witted, knowledgeable and humble, talking in reverential terms of the industry that has brought him so much success.

A few questions and answers with the audience close out the show, and Taker is only too eager to flesh out his responses with further annecdotes from his illustrious career, alongside some trademark eye-rolls and serpentine tongue flickering. It’s all lapped up by the crowd and following one final raised fist, the Deadman rolls out. It’s been a funny, eye-opening, but most importantly one-of-a-kind show, and the opportunity to see a bona fide legend in such a candid environment is simply brilliant.

A couple of side notes, this was my first show of any sort where my phone had to be placed into a locked pouch so no photos or recording could be made. On the plus side, it was great to be at a show that had everyone fully engaged and I didn’t have to watch the whole thing through someone else’s screen, and the lock and unlock process was super smooth (apart from the guy at the bar who suddenly realised he didn’t have anything else on him to pay for a pint with). But I just don’t see how phone-less shows would be do-able with larger audiences and whilst we live in a world where people still don’t understand liquid limits on aircraft after 20+ years. Also, it does feel weird not being able to idly scroll whilst waiting for the headliner, but hey there’s always this ‘conversation’ thing I’ve heard so much about!

Secondly, this was not a cheap ‘do’ – I get that to keep an exclusive almost “fan club” vibe to proceedings, there needs to be a bit of a premium on the tickets, but it’s unsurprising that during a so-called “Cost of Living Crisis” there are spare seats in most sections, with initial allocations ranging from £120 for standard seats to £350 for the meet and greet VIP experience. And it was VERY galling to see cheaper £50 tickets released shortly before the day of the show, some of which were right next to us and indeed within spitting distance of the main man. At the very least it would have been nice to have been able to have those as an option on the first day of ticket sales rather than them being snuck in later.

For me though, you can’t really put a price on seeing such a one-of-a-kind icon in the flesh in a relatively intimate setting, and anyone saying otherwise can quite frankly Rest. In. Peace.