Local Hero Records, Canterbury
Local Hero Records, Canterbury, 14th July 2005:
Finally, after a mere three years or so of saying “we must…”, we (The Psychotic Reaction) have finally managed to share a bill with Canterbury’s tea-punk phenomenon Luke Smith, plus his recently expanded band of cohorts The Feelings (namely Dave The Drummer and Adrian The Bass Player).
Now that he’s only once a month at the Hobgoblin, Thursday night at Local Hero provides Luke and the full band with their weekly showcase. Every week a different guest is invited to provide the filling in the Luke Smith sandwich — in other words the middle set between Luke’s two. So, with sound carefully tailored to conform to the sonic confines of the venue (hyper sensitive neighbours limit the volume quite dramatically, but as Lach said here back in April: “fuck the neighbours!”), The Psychotic Reaction finally bring their full band sound to Local Hero: something else that we’ve been saying “we must” do for ages. Rather than go for some limp-plectrumed “unplugged” compromise, I thought this would be a golden opportunity to try some new material and some of the quieter songs we don’t normally play at more “rock” gigs. So as well as (electric!) guitar; a tiny, neigbour-placating amp; bass; and drums, we had Luke Smith himself join us for a few songs to tickle his ivories and stroke his organ (ah! How we laughed!). We book-ended the set with two nearly-noisy songs, filled in with a couple of other newies (at least, they’re destined for the next album), played some familiar tracks (”Cocoon”) and others we rarely attempt (”Dracula’s Guest”, “I’m Not Ready Yet”). This latter tune particularly benefited from the attention of Luke’s keyboard — maybe we need one full time — and Gav’s wah-fuzz bass solo. I even had a Rene & Renata-style duet with Luke (well, he does have a beard).
So, all in all a highly successful evening. Good crowd, nice atmosphere, plus I’m consistently impressed by Luke’s ever expanding repertoire. Tonight featured a spoken-word cameo from an enigmatic gentleman named Robert who ably demonstrated how white rap could/should be done. Luke reached back to the halcyon days of 1993 for “Friday Night” and a played new song examining the age old I-want-to-go-the-party-but-what-if-it’s-full-of-twats? dilemma. Hopefully, we will be returning soon.
Set list:
- Dracula’s Guest
- Force Of Nature
- It’s A Small Town
- Monkey To Your Monolith
- I’m Not Ready Yet
- Cocoon
- Barking Up The Wrong Tree