Paint It Black - Underworld, London, 24/6/2005

  by Philip Vincent

published: 20 / 8 / 2005

intro

Paint it Black recently completed a European tour. At the London Underworld Philip Vincent sees them take "the over-used Black Flag style of aggro punk" and rejuvenate it "with an armful of adrenalin directed straight to the frontal lobes"

Ah, the Underworld, the most horrible-sounding and in fact downright weird venue I frequent on a regular basis. The stage faces onto the crowd area which is then surrounded by a gallery where those too cool,old,tired or lazy to get down into the thick of the action can stand and watch. It sounds good, doesn’t it ? The only thing wrong is the crowd area is intercut by two massive pillars which do a bloody good job of getting in the way of most of the sight lines in the venue. Anyway it was here I found myself for Paint It Black's London date on their recent UK tour. I had been waiting for it for some time. I got to the venue quite late and walked in just as they hit the stage and I have to say they hit it pretty hard, I wasn’t sure what to expect having only heard their last album,'Paradise', but was pleasantly surprised. They took what I feel is the over-used Black Flag style of aggro punk and rejuvenated it with an armful of adrenalin directed straight to the frontal lobes. The crowd went spectacularly off the wall stage diving and generally pitting within moments of the first song. Before long the sweat was dripping of the band, the crowd and the walls. This was good. I was having fun. No one had tried to beat up the obvious journalist guy standing at the back with his ear plugs in and the band's message was coming across. 25 minutes later however I was starting to think “Okay, when are you going play a different song?” as it did all begin to blur into one number, mostly due to the fact I don’t know their back catalogue well enough to get into it as the other kids in the place did. All in all though a kick ass performance from the Paint it Black boys with energy and sweat screaming out of them and into the front row. If I had been 5 years younger I would have been stage diving myself.

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