It's weird watching bands you have grown up grow old, fat, haggard. And do greatest hits tours, living out former glories like old men convincing themselves the best years are to come. Imagine a fat, old, tired Kurt Cobain, with teenage children and track marks, leading a bloated Nirvana round the world to diminishing returns and producing less and less vital music as time drags on. That could've been Therapy? When Kurt, the Iconic Christ to the Millennium, abdicated responsibility in a shotgun sandwich, Therapy? could've filled the dark void with Stadium Hate Rock, but leapt over it.  

Instead, as Andy Cairns repeatedly points out, Therapy? don't play the corporate rock game. Fuck MTV, he says. Not because they only play Slipknot videos these days of course, but because its all part of the McDonaldsisation or art and passion into products to shift. Honest.

Of course such ideals only really apply because a decade into their career, Therapy? are still playing to 500 people in a converted pub in Stoke-or-Hanley-or-wherever-it-is. Once ironic rock gestures are now predictable, such as widdley-woo guitar solos, and hand clapping, chanting call and response sectiosn ala Guns N Roses. The music itself - the furious angry old man rage of "Bad Karma" and "Suicide Pact" burn - but the set soon turns into a nostalgic trip through the backyard of angry revisionism.

Without having a choice, Therapy claim to have turned their back on all of it. Cleverly they turned to rock just before it became cool and so, benefit from that most elusive of all currrencies, credibility. Of A Sort.

With todays Halloween show - playing the first number behind identical Jason Voorhees Hockey Masks and with a comical cut out Paddy Pumpkin, they become more of a sly joke, even despite the vast repetoire of old skool rock they have that puts moronic chancers like Limp Bizkit to shame. These obviously are men who took strength from their music, not gave their strength to the most profitable career path into movies, media, and millions.

New song "Joey" is brief incoherent yell into nothingness, except with its face painted crowd surfing mass of bubbling larval youth, nothingness yells back "Fuck yeah! Hail Satan" before punching shit out of each other. Hmm.

Where do we go now? One rock band once asked. God knows. There's money to be made, shows to be played, and demons to be exorcised. I don't know if Therapy are cabaret or credible. I can't tell. It sounds good, it seems true, but the Angry Old Men Of Rock are in danger of becoming a sideshow in rock's circus of horrors, unable to grow beyond the box labelled "1994", pigeonholed by the press and their so-called Fans. A retrospective, nostalgic greatest hits tour does not strengthen the cause.

All they are saying is give hate a chance. There are far worse bands in the world - and that surely is enough reason for Therapy? to exist, a thorn in the side of their detractors, to show that there is still room for passion, wit, and honesty. Give them a chance. They're not dead yet. Or Suicidal. Just slightly bored.

Setlist : Intro, Church of Noise, He's Not That Kind Of Girl, Suicide Pact, Bad Karma, Isolation, Stop It You're Killing Me, Skyward, Joey, Turn, Screamager, Die Laughing, Breaking The Law, Diane, Nowhere, Evil Elvis, Lonely Crying Only, Meat Abstract, Knives.

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment 1.0 beta 2!