Municipal Waste @ Birmingham Academy 2, 30th January 2010

This being my first time at the new, improved, and moved-over-the-other-friggin’-side-of-town Academy, I was looking forward to experiencing what this revamped venue had to offer. First impressions were favourable, with a much brighter and distinguished atmosphere in this room, certainly when compared to its Academy 2 predecessor. That said, there were certain aspects that conspired to sabotage my enjoyment of the night, not least the fact that a mere two bar staff were on hand to serve an audience that grew to at least  two to three hundred people. Leading to waits upwards of half an hour at times, it was not conducive to an evening spent with the Waste (as they shall henceforth be known), who are best experienced deliriously crowdsurfing with a beer bong halfway out your gizzard like some kind of boozers’ drip.
I hadn’t seen any advertising declaring the presence of Violent Arrest on this show, so I had no idea of what to expect once they took the stage. Thankfully they played a straight ahead, no frills take on  hardcore punk with nary a hint of metal, thrash or bullshit. Lean and stripped down, they brought to mind such genre figureheads as Negative Approach and MDC, with each track a short sharp shock of righteous anger.

Invited onto the show at the request of Tony from Municipal Waste on the strength of their 7”, their material tended to merge into one at times, although within this type of hardcore that sticks so resolutely to its generic conventions, it didn’t affect my enjoyment of them at all.
The main downer was the clash between the sizable – at this point only probably about half full — venue and the need for Violent Arrest’s music to be best witnessed spat into your face in the upstairs room of some grotty little pub. On the larger stage there was little motion with the exception of stern-faced vocalist Steve, although this meant that the musicianship was tight, breakneck and snappy from start to finish.
Having discovered post-gig that VA involved members of ‘Britcore’ icons Ripcord and Heresy I would have gone into the show with a better idea of what to expect, but having no prior knowledge of the band meant that they were a really awesome surprise, and a great compliment to the rest of the lineup.

I had been into Sweden’s Victims for a few years now and had been one of the main sources of expectation for the show tonight, and they in no way disappointed. A frighteningly euphoric mix of crusty thrash punk, garage rock dirtier than Zeke and a serious Motorhead fixation, they are as beastly live as on paper.
Ripping through their set at a frantic pace, they were compelling, the high-octane rush of their music coupled with some serious rocking from the members, with shirtless, bespectacled guitarist Jon a real focal point looking like some swearier hybrid of Mastodon’s Brent Hines and Mike Muir from Suicidal Tendencies. And Rolf Harris.

Halfway through the set, they mentioned that they also featured Gareth Jones on guitar, ex of UK sluggers Raging Speedhorn, which didn’t exactly get the most favourable reaction. However, he performed admirably, seemingly on some kind of quest to detach his head from the rest of his body with a method only describable as body-banging.

Victims’ unbridled kinetic aggression is underlaid with an insidious dark melody, akin to the likes of Tragedy and His Hero Is Gone at places, and the gang choruses sprinkled throughout their set meant that a few of the gnarlier crust punks in the crowd were singing along to the likes of ‘This Is The End’ and ‘Who The Fuck Are We?’. They also managed to inspire a sizable pit despite the fact that they must have been flying under the radar of a lot of people present before their performance. I really hope they make enough of an impression throughout the tour to get them back over here on their own tour, as I really need to see Victims again.

The rumours of the death of Municipal Waste’s sense of humour have been greatly exaggerated. Whilst their last album, ‘Massive Aggressive’ saw them mature both musically and thematically, it has categorically not affected their characteristically phenomenal live performances which have included the likes of gargantuan beer bongs, literal crowd surfing on boogie boards and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man on drums in the past.

Connecting with the crowd immediately, super-likable frontman Tony Foresta is gambolling around the stage like a bandana-clad Madball come to life. Their blend of raw, ripping hardcore punk and clinical thrash metal has updated the crossover framework for the 21st century, although its spirit is as 80s as a night watching ‘Night of the Creeps’ and listening to Anthrax (not that such a night should be discouraged) and twice as fun.
Playing a discography-encompassing set, we were treated to a medley from ‘Waste ‘Em All’ and their EPs including ‘Thrashing Is My Business…And Business is Good’ and ‘Mutants of War’, with Ryan imploring the crowd to serve out some form of thrash justice to the Kerrang! Tour going on in the adjoining main Academy venue. Whilst such bloodsport didn’t happen, we were instead treated to a ‘chicken fight’. For the uninitiated, a chicken fight involves audience members clambering onto the shoulders of a friend, as they mosh in a fight to the death. Or at least til there’s one left standing, who receives free Waste merch (as long as he crowdsurfs to the back of the venue to pick it out).
Touches such as these make a Waste show so memorable. That’s without mentioning the myriad of circle pits and humungous walls of death that sprang up throughout the crowd, sometimes at the behest of the band, sometimes occurring naturally. It seemed like the ‘Hazardous Mutation’ tunes generated the best response, with the likes of ‘Guilty of Being Tight’ and ‘Terror Shark’ the trigger for rampant mayhem.

Having honed their sound over the course of their past three albums, the Waste now possess an intimidating body of work, with their consistent quality rapidly matched by the quantity of such roasters. For a headlining set, energy levels show no signs of flagging, from neither on nor offstage, with Dave Witte’s phenomenal drumming pounding out a consistent thrashing tattoo, speckled with fills so fast and tight they almost defied belief.

The later albums are given plenty of stage time too, ‘Beer Pressure’ seeming apt given the trouble involved in getting a pint tonight, and ‘Headbanger Face Rip’ and ‘Sadistic Magician’ from 2007’s ‘Art of Partying’ generated a frenzied response whilst the tracks pulled from their latest slab, especially ‘Wrong Answer’ did the same.
Having been a fan of MW for a good five or six years now, it warmed me to see the level of affection they have managed to achieve, and it literally has been garnered via nothing more than the quality of their songwriting, their consistent hard graft and willingness to spend month upon month crammed into the back of a van.

At the end of the show, battered, beer-drenched bodies limped their way to the safety of their beds, or to continue the night at the Waste’s favourite drinking hole Scruffy Murphys, all with the band’s mantra repeating around their head. “Municipal Waste is gonna fuck you up.”

Review Duncan Wilkins
Photos Katja Ogrin

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