The Sonics @ The Waterfront

I like to think that I might be the first Outline reviewer to bring their mum to a show. If this is true, then I think it should become a more practiced technique in the art of reviewing, as I was surprised by the insight into the people attending I was given by my mother. Indeed, almost as soon as we enter the venue she happily points out that many of the people in attendance are members of a swing dancing group she frequents. You can see which people she is talking about, as they are almost all dressed in 50’s attire, with the greased hair and winged glasses to match. I suppose that’s fair, considering The Sonics music embodies that lifestyle more than any band that has ever existed. Anyway, after having my mum buys me a coke from the bar, because I’m a child, I settle in for a night of pure rock and roll.

Local boys and Outline favourites BK & Dad were up first and I must say, they weren’t half BK & Bad. Sorry. The loop-pedalling singer layers on grungy riffs in a way that brings disapproval from both the 50’s swing dancers and my mother. Obviously this is a sign that things are going brilliantly. They have some cool animated visuals that are manipulated live behind the band which is something all bands should do. They finish with Loggerhead and get really heavy. A great start to the evening.

This one really gets them 50’s types moving. Electric River play what is the definition of inoffensive rock music. They play all the familiar melodies, all the familiar chords. Saying that, they do have a few tunes, and they know what they’re doing on their instruments. One guy at the front loves it, so they clearly do it for some people, just not me. My mum liked the singer, as she thought he had a nice voice. Fair play mum.

The Sonics should need no introduction, right? They pretty much invented garage rock in the 60’s supporting The Kinks and inspiring Nirvana, The White Stripes and The Black Keys to greatness. So what, I hear you asking, are they doing in Norwich? My answer to that is I have no fucking clue, although releasing a new album might have something to do with it. They kick it off with a song from the seminal The Sonics BOOM called Cinderella. Like most of their material it relies on screaming vocals, fuzzed out guitar and an ear splitting (in a good way) saxophone. All this from a bunch of men who are old enough to be my grandfather. It’s easy to see why the 50’s re-enactors would want to hark back to this. For a few minutes I am not Joshua Whitmore-Lyons, a failing A-level student from Norwich, but Rick McQueen, a greaser from LA who doesn’t play by the rules! This is shown in songs like Boss Hoss which is literally a song about a really cool car. No one is writing songs about cool cars these days, are they? Then they announce “This is a song about a girl on a motorcycle” and you can suddenly tell they wrote these songs when they were 17. They’re definitely a band of their time, and their songs definitely aren’t the most politically correct in all cases, but then, they were written when they were 17. My favourite song of the night is by far Strychnine which has the strangest boast I’ve ever heard from a band “Some people like water, some people like wine, but I like the taste of straight strychnine”. They have a cheeky stage presence that convinces you it could have been 60 years ago. It’s a beautiful thing seeing a band so far from their beginning still feel in their prime. As they end on the first song they ever wrote, The Witch, I cannot help but feel happy for them, that they are once again doing what they love.