It starts with the wail of sirens and four policemen coming on stage to rapturous applause. Thirty seconds later the vocalist, in a dark blue LAPD uniform and wearing a gas mask with a microphone inside is yelling an unintelligable cacophony whilst around him the musicians create a tight, taut swirl of noise and screaming. A nightstick hangs unused from his belt as he manipulates the four separate microphones and two keyboards to create a soundscape that sounds like some bizarre take on country metal, with a dark, bleeding edge.

Tomahawk are Mike Patton, of Mr.Bungle, Faith No More, Peeping Tom, Fantomas, and Lovage - a man whose work schedule has seen him release on average an album every six months recently, and a determined maverick within the modern music scene. He’s supported by John Stanier of Helmet on drums, Duane Denison on the Jesus Lizard on guitar, and Kevin Rutmanis of the Melvins.

For the first time in years he’s creating music with things as distinct as discernable lyrics and choruses, bolstered up by some of God's own Heaviest Riffs and music as more powerful, havier, and more intense than anything people half his age aspire to making. Songs consist of gentle crooned, mellow interludes, and frantic noise fests. Patton prowls the stage like a man possessed, lost in a world of his own, knocking over most of his keyboards and several microphones with a long yellow lead, tense as a snake coiled and ready to strike.

With a fiercely uncompromising soundtrack, and zero media exposure, Tomahawk have managed to sell out the Astoria on the strength of a complete media blackout and a unpromoted album with no videos, no singles, no adverts, and next to no interviews. They manage to perform all of the debut album, starting with the paranoid tension of “God Hates A Coward” before unfurling to the stunning deconstruction of modern pop music that is “POP 1” - an incoherent rant that sounds like the internal monologue of a paranoid rich rock star, before the frantic chorus of “This Beat Could Win Me A Grammy!” repeated so many times it penetrates the inner consciousness in the way that Pop Moguls dream of. 
 
The new material they air, including the fantastic “Birdsong”, shows where the band are going next - the middle ground between the melodic crunching genius of Faith No More, and the off-the-wall, dense atmospherics of Fantomas.

Within five songs he’s telling the audience to go the “Flamingo Bar”, the neon-lit dayglo pink upstairs sleaze lounge at the Astoria, and directing all the house lights and the audience to wave at it. A few songs later he’s ordering security guards to “Go out and catch criminals.” and mocking them to appreciative cheers, before slapping them gently with a Bondage Whip. In the next song he gets a security guard on stage and spanks his flabby ass.

This is before the encore, where the giant neon sign above the stage, normally only used on Saturday Nights, is brought out of retirement and flashes tackily above the noise fest "G.A.Y.".

For the encore, Patton returns, and serenades the crowd with a straight-laced “Angel Eyes”, sung gently with the passion and ability of a virtuoso. As is his tradition, at any moment, you expect all hell to break loose into a cacophony of feedback, screaming and mayhem at the drop of a hand as Patton takes his role as conductor of this demented musical ensemble. But “Angel Eyes” - originally by Sinatra - is sung gently and beautifully.

However, it is the final, apocalyptic encore of “Laredo” that sees the band fleeing the venue into a hastily arranged cab as Venue Security scour the backstage area for him as the Police drive to the venue. Patton screams across his five octane range, curled up into a ball, thrashing around like an animal the fantastic payoff line of “The Cats In The Bag. And The Bags In The River” before prowling the stage and pissing on the security guards.

And who hasn’t felt like doing that at least once in their life?

Raw Fucking Power!

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