Shock Radio Salford - Review of our recent Pint Pot gig

The Scratch, The Ambush @ The Old Pint Pot, 16/10 2008
Reviewed By Hardy Funk

Every time I’ve been passing the Old Pint Pot on my way to town I was saying to myself I should check it out and have a couple of pints with a good friend there. And every time I was thinking a club called the Old Pint Pot should add an e to the old. But spelling it the way they do makes perfect sense because inside just as from the outside everything looks exactly like an old pint pot should, only in a very polished, clean and new way. Features like that usually not an indication for a good and authentic pub the Pot disproves this simple equation: there’s good music, straight from The Sonics to the best of punkrock, and the bartender is just as nice as a bartender needs to be.

That said there’s one thing that didn’t live up to expectations: there’s hardly any paying guest present; the audience is almost exclusively made up of the two bands, The Scratch’s manager, the soundman (in this case a woman), me and another guy reviewing the gig for Student Direct. So this is one of those gigs bands rave about when they’re finally playing stadiums boasting about how they gave it everything. And there actually seems to be a lot of truth in those statements.

The Ambush, a Mancunian five piece band, start with two energetic songs that blend, like most of their songs, pop punk and indie. Their drive is in large parts due to the singer, who jumps and walks around as much as the small stage allows only to be standing still and howling at the ceiling with closed eyes in the next moment. When he actually kneels down to sing I find myself thinking “Why ain’t I this guy?” and chances are one reason is I can’t do the things he can do with his voice. Shortly interrupted by mic problems they go on, never losing their pace. On their fifth or sixth song they even add a sax and just when the unavoidable sax solo has started and I’m thinking “that’s unnecessary now” the singer gets his harmonica and they get real bluesy and raunchy. What a perfect band for a small pub like this.

Roughly an hour after The Ambush started playing The Scratch take over the stage and make clear from the start that they take the small audience just as serious as their predecessors. A classic two guitars, bass and drum lineup this St. Alban based band has just recently played at In The City and even performed in front of 20.000 people at Manchester’s MEN Arena last year. So they are used to bigger crowds than this one.

Their amazing energy is much more in the songs, but then again, power chords just knock my socks off no matter how often I’ve heard them. Many songs are not much longer than two minutes (at least that’s what they feel like), which is all punkrock is about as far as I am concerned. Besides, reviving the spirit of the best of kicking 70s punkrock is all this band is about. Listening to the CD now I can partly see where the comparisons with The Buzzcocks come from but live they sounded a lot more like The Vibrators, if with an indie edge. And there isn’t actually a lot you would miss on a Vibrators gig if The Scratch were playing instead. It’s powerful, intense music delivered with all heart that makes you wish you were in a sweaty club crowded with people you could pogo dance with. Pretty much towards the end of the set singer Andy Thompson, who has been including pretty much everyone present in his comments inbetween songs, sums up the evening saying “You’re here. Gettin’ pissed. What more could you want?!”

That leaves me only to say that both bands are real nice as well, the kind of guys you’d be sure to find at the bar after the gig, happy to have a pint and chat with you. And next time you hear a big band telling you how they played until their fingers bleeded in front of 10 people you better believe them.

http://www.thescratch.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/anambush