This was my first visit to the Hyde Park Book Club for a gig – the upstairs is quite swanky but the basment gig venue looks like an old disused basement – still – the sound was excellent and it gave Mathias from the burning hell lots of banter material as he had flashbacks to playing with his first band, as they started out practising in friends dank, dark basements….
As we entered down the stairs, deadflowers (Ian I think was his name) was playing a beautiful set – one guitar with a ton of effects pedals and low growling voice – with the low level red lighting it felt like one of the end scenes from an episode of the 3rd season of Twin Peaks – moody and magnificent, loved it.
The Burning Hell are a truly wonderful thing to behold live and it’s been too long since I last saw them. Funny as hell, they come across as just having the best time together which translates into a great evening for everyone else. Asking for requests Mathias replied to one “Oh, I don’t think we know that one” to which Ariel tartly retorted “Well, I do!” – so they did it. They are all great musicians – Darren played bass and mandolin whilst Ariel switched from a bass sax (?) to drums to guitar but is maily the dry vocal delivery of the fab lyrics by Mathias that has you beaming from ear to ear. My daughter Marisa knows the words to Amateur Rapper off by heart so I always think of her when her favourite line “Come on dog it’s the Apocalypse – we can’t get sentimental” comes around. Their other ‘hit’ was originally off Ariel and Mathias own LP which also contains another song they did tonight about kids author Maurice Sendak and his ‘secret’ lover – just ace….
Great on record but you really really really need to see them live.
Bob the Chiropodist