Helsinki Collarbone Massacre

I can´t say that I ever was a fan of Leatherface which doesn´t mean I did not like them. Although the name was always around and I was aware of the band, I just had never listened to their music. For no particular reason that is. This changed when our bass player, a huge fan of Leatherface, introduced me to their stuff and hooked me up with three of their albums during one week only. Quite an overdose of an overview of the band´s output. But listening to albums like their much-lauded "Mush" pleased my ear holes and got me interested in Leatherface´s somehow unique punk rock approach.

I heard a lot of pub rock there, sometimes the music even reminded me of singer/songwriter stuff like e.g. Billy Bragg. The cool twist about their style is that the guitar(s) are cranked up to the max, they throw in a good chunk of hc/(post) punk and "singer"/ mastermind Frankie Stubbs sounds like Lemmy´s little brother. The guy must gargle with rusty nails and whiskey before coughing into a mic. And still he has great melodic vocal lines - miraculous!

Needless to say that our bass man was pretty wired about their upcoming show in Bar Loose, and when he asked me to join in on the fun I didn´t have to think about it more than two seconds. I wanted to hear that live!

Bar Loose is always a nice place to see a show, check out this post if you wanna know a bit more about the venue. First up were the locals of Cigarette Crossfire, who delivered the goods with an energetic gig. The four-piece was in constant motion, so all I got is a blurry pic from their gig - better than nothing and who wants to see a static punk rock show, anyway? It´s not Kraftwerk...

The Crossfire boys had a great sound and were a pretty tight unit. You could tell that they have been around the block a couple of times before releasing (what I guess is) their debut album last October on Helsinki-based Combat Rock Industry. A bit too emo for my taste but still a good opener for the evening´s main act, that started precisely at 22:30.
Man, I gotta say that when they tell you here in Helsinki that the band starts at 22:30, the band starts at 22:30. You can set your fucking watch to it. I consider this a great thing, cause this way you can see a gig during the week, even have a couple of brews AND go to work the next day without looking and smelling like you have recently died. At least not more than usual.

When Leatherface took the stage, they did it with a little surprise for the mostly unexpecting audience. Mr. Stubbs, who also takes care of at least half the guitar duties, had broken his collarbone shortly before the tour took off and thus was unable to play. It´s exactly what happened to yours truly many moons ago when I had just started to play and let me tell you - it fucking sucked! Well, Stubbs made the best out of the situation, moving restlessly (and obviously annoyed by this limitation) all over the stage in his typical epileptic manner. Backed up by Dickie Hammond (a fitting name when you know that dick means fat in German) and some new guy on guitars they provided a great wall of sound that made up twice for the loss.

Blurry again but check out the right corner. Picture in Picture - this is the new age.

Now it became apparent that the place was sold out, it got nicely packed. Fists were raised, choruses yelled, even some minor crowd surfing was spotted. And maybe twenty minutes into the set, in between all of this, I realized that this band finally had me. There is a certain honesty and urgency in their songs that is overwhelming, especially live. Emotional lyrics without being the slightest bit emo, just in your face and to the point. Yeah! I also bumped into some familiar people that I hadn´t seen for a long time - a nice add-on for an overall great evening. After a bit more than an hour the fun was over (at least one encore was played) and I had to split immediately to catch the last tram home, which I successfully did by displaying a Guiness-book-of-records sprint.

Make sure to check out:

Leatherface
Cigarette Crossfire
Combat Rock Industry