REVIEW: Drastic//Automatic @ Shakespeares

Just a coupla miles down the road from a Friday night football capitulation at Hillsborough, we nearly had an even more drastic collapse, as the Jarred Up crowd at Shakespeares very nearly created a shortcut to the bar!

But, before we get into just how close we were to the seeing Drastic//Automatic bring the ceiling crashing down (not very, really), it’s worth mentioning the evening’s main support, Duvet.

Hailing from Manchester, the punky, female fronted five-piece were making just their second trip across the Pennines, this time fresh off the back of recently released split single, ‘GirlCow/Sweaty Dog’.

Photo credit: Lia Qin (Instagram: @liaaaaatgigs).

The former of which includes that most underutilised and grossly maligned of instruments, the cowbell – performed admirably this evening by lead singer, Grace Walkden.

Her accompanying vocal delivery sits somewhere between Manchester punk stalwarts Penetration’s, Pauline Murray, and X-Ray Specs’, Poly Styrene, which is admittedly lofty company, but they’re young, they do a good line in cool girl aesthetic, and while they’ve still got some way to go for our money, they’re deffo worth keeping an eye on.

Onto our evening’s headliners; our favourite local, dystopian tune merchants Drastic//Automatic. It’s been a few months since the three-piece crashed onto our radar at Get Together festival and since then they’ve been busy with the release of latest single Ravenscourt Park, 2004, writing new tunes, and even a bit of writing work in these pages (turns out, multi-talented lead singer Sean Hession is a journo in his own right).

Photo credit: Lia Qin (Instagram: @liaaaaatgigs).

Tonight’s not quite a sell-out, but there are plenty enough bodies in the Shakey’s upstairs sweat box to cause a fuss. It’s also a Jarred Up gig, so it’s likely to go off, and as such a few of the local faces from their stable, the likes of Femur and Django, are out to check out their upstart contemporaries.

We meander our way to the front of stage left as the band kick off with an unusually restrained newbie to the set. Sean strums out a jangling chord progression, reminiscent of King Krule, while rasping his vocal.

The reserved start doesn’t last long as they fire into older material like Cup Final (I mean, it’s all pretty new innit). The signs are good. They’re on their game this evening.

Photo credit: Lia Qin (Instagram: @liaaaaatgigs).

They’ll be the first to admit that, at times, their shows have been littered with equipment hiccups, and just when things are frantically bobbing along, the frustrating curse of equipment malfunction strikes again, and Sean has to swap out guitars.

I only mention this, as it’s been a recurring theme at the Drastic shows I’ve seen so far and perhaps this, mixed with a subdued crowd response in the early part of the show is feeding into Sean, Benji (Wilson – Drums) and Sissy (Green – bass)’s visible frustration.

But, step forward the hero of the hour: Mr Will Kitching.

Photo credit: Lia Qin (Instagram: @liaaaaatgigs).

Not all heroes wear capes, but this one almost certainly does! The flamboyant former Saints front man pops up at the front of the crowd, out of nowhere, and begins thrashing about. Cue the massive bloke behind me making a beeline for Will’s slinky frame, shoulder at the ready, smashing straight through him. And there it is; the spark has been ignited and off we go!

It serves to light a fire under Drastic//Automatic: Sean, no longer compulsively messing with his mic stand, screeches and pummels his way through the rest of the set, uninhibited and on the edge of unhinged, in other words, at his best; Benji smashes away on the drums like a bearded Sporty Spice, rocking 90s specs and space buns; Sissy can barely see there’s so much sweat pouring off him, and by the time we hit crowd favourites Ravenscourt Park, 2004 and Finish Line the roof is coming off.

However, the roof should never have been our concern.

Photo credit: Lia Qin (Instagram: @liaaaaatgigs).

As the penultimate song finishes, the landlady appears by the entrance. Is she heading for the pit? Nope. She makes her way to the front of stage, pulls Sissy over, and a quick word in his ear later he’s on the mic telling us to ‘stop the pit’, as apparently the ceiling downstairs is precariously straining under the force of the bouncing and ‘we’re going to end up in the bar’!

On hearing this, my instinct is that I’ve previously seen far more hectic chaos at The Shakey, at Tramlines for instance, but Jarred Up’s founder James Watkins explains, from the relative safety of the beer garden post-show, that as there were fewer people in the pit, they could travel further. I dunno, physics, I guess!

Despite Sissy’s tongue in cheek solicitation for the crowd to carry on as he delivers the bad news, the crowd do as they’re told and the final song of the night goes off with some slow motion, exaggerated shoulder bumping! Will, having played his part, disappears to the beer garden as quickly as he appeared before the final chord is struck, and it’s over. All a bit surreal, to be honest.

Photo credit: Lia Qin (Instagram: @liaaaaatgigs).

Despite the more unusual(?) elements of the gig, the band’s performance only enhanced my belief that Drastic//Automatic have something special, and thankfully, tonight’s crowd got there in the end. A far better evening than our counterparts in the stadium, by all accounts.

Catch Drastic//Automatic, alongside Femur and Any Old Iron at Jarred Up’s Halloween show at Yellow Arch Studios on 28th October. Tix here.