Ariel Sharratt and Mathias Kom - Trades Club, Hebden Bridge, 16/4/2024

  by Helen Tipping

published: 1 / 1 / 1

intro

Helen Tipping watches anti-capitalist duo maAriel Sharratt and Mathias Kom make waves in a long awaited performance at The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge

Sometime back in what now seems like the distant past, going to gigs was made impossible, which left us with only the online “gig”, unsatisfactory for both performers and audience. Often badly put together because it was all new for the artists, we would watch them as they played, streamed from their smartphones and watched on ours, tipped sideways. Unfortunately for Ariel Sharratt & Mathias Kom (formerly of the band The Burning Hell), it all coincided with the release of their “Never Work” album, and instead of touring the album to audiences in small venues across the world, they had to release it, unsupported, to a world in turmoil. Newly unemployed, and presumably bored, they gave us a web-based TV show called “Everything Will Probably Be Okay” (still available on YouTube if you want to relive those heady days of sitting in the garden, drinking beer and wondering whether the world was going to end). LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRHehhtX5Qg Fortunately for all of us, things improved and artists returned to being the right way up. Finally, in November 2021, more than a year after its first release, Mathias and Ariel were able to tour the album. Fast forward to now, and “Never Work” has been remastered and re-released, with a new tour to promote it. Those friends who could not stand to watch online gigs are now ripe to receive the message. The future is great, capitalism is dead. Touring with Shotgun Jimmy, the theme is very much “the future”, with Jimmy performing as a robot musician from the future, come to tell us all that music is very much still going on, although work not so much. He’s very entertaining, and later on he doubles up as the third band member alongside Ariel and Mathias. They perform most of the songs from “Never Work”, with Ariel doing a virtuoso Stylophone performance on “The Robots Vs Mrs Patel”. I have to say it’s one of my favourite albums, and the anti-capitalist message isn’t lost on me. Especially poignant is “Two Jeffs”, the story of a money hoarding CEO and one of his employees who dies on the warehouse floor. I couldn’t possibly say who it could be referring to. There’s plenty of banter and chat between song, but that’s fine, that’s what we come for to be entertained as much as to listen to the music. They finish off with “Fuck the Government, I Love You”, and I think everyone would be disappointed if they didn’t get to shout along with it, particularly in the well-chosen venue, Hebden Bridge’s Trades Club.

Band Links:-

Play in YouTube:-