"Ned’s exist solely for the hell of it, occasionally breaking cover to play a show whenever they feel like a holiday where they pretend to be rock stars for a night."

Technically, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin don’t exist. As a band, Neds are a part time effort, a Saturday Job. With just 19 shows in the past 7 years, Neds are a hobby band. Even Guns N’Roses are more prolific.

And, with their unapologetically retrospective set culled almost exclusively from the so called ‘glory years’, Ned’s are a history lesson more than a going concern. A reminder of what once was. In many ways this is no different than The Rolling Stones, or Rogers Waters Almost-Pink-Floyd show. Without the press inches, a label, or new music, Ned’s occupy the place where they exist solely for the hell of it, occasionally breaking cover to play a show whenever they feel like it as a holiday where they pretend to be rock stars for a night.

And then it’s back to work the next morning. Back to work. A.g.a.i.n.

“I feel 17 again!” I’m told during a gap between the songs. It’s as.. boisterous as it was when we were half our age back in 1991, and it feels the same. But it’s different. Maybe because we’re all fatter, balder, and older, it isn’t quite as rampant in the sweaty mass as it maybe once was. But it feels the same.

Inside the Venue-Formerly-Known-As-The-Marquee, Ned’s rampage through about 20 songs in 70 minutes – and what songs they are. Shorn of the currency of being contemporary, the furor of being the Next Big Thing, Ned’s are, simply put, just a damn fine band. Their songs are often break neck fumbles : a race from the start of the song to the end in the shortest distance and time humanly possible. Hits of yesteryear such as “Happy”, “Trust”, “Until You Find Out”, “Aim”, “Intact”, “Grey Cell Green”, and so forth are executed with a desperate fury. Whilst the songs themselves have, in some ways, dated poorly and expose the bands limited palette, the gig is never just about the music.

In some ways, it’s about everything but the music : the community of strangers brought together by a common goal, the friends and faces you only see in sweaty rooms and moshpits, the camaderie of escape from all the things we spend most of lives finding we can’t escape. And at the heart of it, in some way, the music itself speaks in some way, perhaps unspoken or unconsciously, to the fans lives. Neds songs are about nothing and everything at the same time. They’re short lived expeditions that burst into life, blossom for three minutes, and then are near-instantly replaced with another song about the same concerns : life, love, lust, longing, and anything else that seems relevant. In some ways, Ned’s are as good as they ever were musically, and, free from the currency of trends, they can be better appreciated for what they are and not the hyperbole and music covers around them.

Sometimes I forget what 1991 was actually like, I forget queuing outside venues, walking to University, listening to vinyl, an age before Oasis and when Nirvana were just another American rock band, and when Def Leppard ruled the world. With this time capsule known as Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, I don’t just remember 1991 with clarity, but I’m back there as real as it ever was. And for 70 minutes on a Thursday Night, that’s no bad thing. 

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