Swervedriver @ The Scala
September 16 2008 @ The Scala, London.
I’m excited! I haven’t been genuinely excited by the prospect of a gig for ages, but I’ve been a fan of Swervedriver for the best part of twenty years, never got to see them the first time around and while I know this probably won’t be as good as ‘back in the day’ it’s the best I’m going to get.
Sadly, some of my excitement is dampened by having to wait outside the Scala for the best part of 45 minutes. They’ve really got to have a look at this, it’s not the first time I’ve had this problem. How hard can it be really to organise a queue of people with tickets and a queue of people waiting to collect, honestly. Other venues manage it. A group behind us in the queue had come down from Nottingham to see support band SixBySeven, but I’ll be surprised if they caught more than the couple of songs we did by the time they got in.
However, all of that is swept aside as Adam Franklin and the boys shuffle on to the stage and launch in to ‘Sci Flyer’. I’ve got to admit that my first thought was ‘Wow, he’s not the skinny, dredlocked lad that I remember’ (in fact he’s looking more like Paul Giamatti in ‘Sideways’ these days), but then that was followed by the thought ‘I’m not the skinny, dredlocked lad that I remember either, so fair enough!’.
‘Sci Flyer’ is rapidly followed by a relentless segue of ‘Sandblasted’, ‘Birds’, ‘99th Dream’ and ‘For Seeking Heat’ and any further thoughts are blown away the power and volume of the Swervie’s sound.
More ‘hits’ follow, ‘Duel’ is monstrous, ‘These Times’ and ‘Blowin’ Cool’ gigantic and ‘Last Train’ mammoth. The only point of annoyance being those members of the crowd, a minority, shouting for ‘Rave Down’ in between each song like imbecilic American golf fans shouting ‘Get in the hole’ on the tee of a par five. So, when ‘Rave Down’ does finally arrive, following a majestic ‘Son Of Mustang Ford’, it’s like a relief, a point of catharsis, almost orgasmic.
It all goes a bit dreamy after that with a superspacey rendition of ‘Duress’ that seems to last forever, yet somehow is over far too soon.
Then all that’s left is the encores, ‘Never Lose That Feeling’ and ‘Kill The Superheroes’ , to see us off in to the night, sandblasted and thoroughly Swervedriven.