1,254 MARTHA, Bigfatbig, Cosmit, Bristol The Exchange (Evening!), Saturday 26th November 2022

 

After a brief pause following “Shiiine On”, it’s back on the gigging trail with a vengeance, with 4 gigs in the next 8 days! For starters, tonight sees a welcome return to my Dance Card for spritely helium-voiced indiepop/punk gender warriors Martha, Durham’s finest having released their 4^th album “Please Don’t Take Me Back” earlier this Autumn. Prima facie another jet-propelled collection of their infectiously catchy guitar-driven poppy punk, but scratch the surface and there’s more depth to this one; the usual musings on interpersonal relationship issues and identity in the 21^st century are joined by some pointed and occasionally necessarily savage political commentary about the utter clusterfuck we’re living in under the tyranny of Tory rule, giving an extra dimension to the band and perhaps proving to be their best album yet… Most popular too, as The Exchange gig sold out so quickly that a Matinee performance was also scheduled!

 Stuart and I however scored tix for the evening, so, in need of some good company and good rock after a turbulent week, I picked the man up and we chatted our way down a drizzly M4, slotting into a free street parking space after a van pulled out – timing! – and hitting a quiet venue just after opening. No time to do anything other than grab a drink and a side-venue pew before openers Cosmit took the stage at 7.15. Clearly taking their cue from tonight’s headliners, they ripped through a set of breakneck-speed, urgent and yearning Buzzcocks/ early Soup Dragons-like melodic punk, with some impressive male/female/other (who knows these days?) overlapping harmonies, and call and response choral hooks. I enjoyed the impressive “whoa-oh-oh” harmonies on the agenda-setting opener, the hurtling “36 Degrees”-esque 4^th number, and the vocalist’s imaginative use of the floor as a percussive instrument in the ramshackle, C86 Subway Records-esque “Caught Up In The Go Go Go”. Plenty to like in this set, then, and if you didn’t latch on to a particular number, no worries, as most tracks barely scraped 2 minutes! A short and snappy, if slightly ragged and unrehearsed, set ended with a Menzingers-like “Rest Your Head On Me”. Damn fine start!

Even better was to come, though, with tour support, Sunderland’s Bigfatbig. who bounded onstage in short order and opened with “Brink Of My Sanity”, a huge rollercoaster change-of-pace number with a Pixies-ish swagger and a deliciously descending bass riff. “Let’s Get Married” followed, a flippant Peaness-like indiepop choon with a naggingly hooky chorus and undulating “Basketcase”-like riff, belted out by the impressively tonsilled (is that even a word? Don’t care!) vocalist Robyn, an irrepressible plus-sized bundle of energy, enthusiasm, and effervescence, waving her tousled pink hair around in a marshmallow blur and ferociously stomping on the stage in huge hobnail boots. “Blame Me” was a 90’s slow-fast-slow hurtle with an almost ska beat and a late pregnant pause, catching us all out, before the ebullient Robyn remarked, “we played a show earlier [today] so if we look physically fucked, [it’s because] we are! [But] we’re having the best time of our lives!”, thereafter leading the band through an apt and impassioned reading of Alanis Morissette’s slacker grunge anthem “You Oughtta Know”. The urgent snarky rocker “Shut Up” followed, Robyn then gushing, “we love Bristol! How big is that Santa in the shopping centre??!!” This marvellous set, delivered with melody, cohesion, purpose and charisma to burn, concluded with the herky-jerky New Wave-isms and thumpingly big repetitive choral chant of “Don’t Wanna Be Sad”. Quite, quite superb!

Follow that, Martha! I grabbed a list and compared notes with Stuart, nearly being caught out as Martha themselves took the stage in equally short order, and in front of a now-packed house, at 8.45. Decided at that point against abandoning my house left front row spot (with guitarist Daniel’s setlist invitingly right in front of me!) for a loo trip, as Martha launched into “Beat Perpetual”, the joyous, rollicking opener to the new album, followed by the brilliantly prescient and pointed “Every Day The Hope Gets Harder” (a title I’m nicking for my End Of Year compo CD, BTW), a punkish blast with a Clash “Tommy Gun” drumbeat finish. “Somebody made choices and led us here to these darkest of times,” the now long-haired main vocalist JC lamented by way of exposition, “But we’ve still got pro Wrestling!”, guitarist Daniel launching into a rampant, rambunctious “Wrestlemania VIII”.

 

A cracking start, but could they keep this up? Happily, the answer was yes, as Martha were rather excellent tonight; tight as the preverbal gnats’ chuff, they sounded tough, road-tested and fluidly coherent, firing their passionate, effervescent amphetamine millennial punk rock bullets with unerring accuracy, interspersing them with pointed self-empowering diatribes, usually delivered by JC. “Bubble In My Bloodstream” was an angry, growling ascending Pixies death-march, launching into a gabbling, change-of-pace ending; “Love Keeps Kicking” (preceded by JC announcing, “ strap yourselves in, we’re about to crank the thermostat!”) a snaking sinuous rocker with a Thin Lizzy dual guitar line and empowering middle 8 speech; and the breathless “Legless In Brandon” was “a love song for all the queers in the room!” A speedily harmonic “Heart Sink” and set-closing “Void” were bookended with an acapella reprise of the earlier new album title track “Please Don’t Take Me Back”, then an irresistible, incandescent “Goldman’s Detective Agency” was the highlight of a 3 song encore capping a quite marvellous set, easily the best I’ve seen this confident and rapidly maturing band.

 Grabbed Daniel’s list as well at the end, then felt guilty about swiping it in front of a stick-using girl who was sat to my right, so I grabbed JC’s for her! Good deed done, I scooped up some Bigfatbig merch from, and a brief chat with, the besieged Robyn and her partner-in-crime Katie (it’s their first UK tour! Wow, they’re that good, that soon? Yikes!), before we braved the now harder rain for a sodden drive back to the ‘don, still home relatively early at 11. Just what I needed, this; great company with Stu, 3 fine bands, a real diamond of a new find in the buoyant Bigfatbig, and the excellent Martha on absolute top form. Bloody brilliant night out!