Less Than Jake, Guttermouth@Den Atelier, Luxembourg City,4/12/08

Tue 23rd Dec, 2008 in Gig Reviews

Luxembourg is known for nothing (ok maybe it has a shop that sells male weed plants in the middle of town).. and there is a good reason for that because when one visits there they leave wondering why the hell they went there and then remember there was a gig on or something. So this is what happened on the period from December 3rd to December 5th, there was a gig on the 4th; Less Than Jake of all people with a surprise appearance from *Guttermouth*… because Luxembogans are known for their love of Californian punk? As was to be expected it was a dismal crowd of mostly American and German tourists, in randomly a fucking awesome venue for live music: The Atelier could indeed put Luxembourg on the map.

But it won’t put Luxembourg on the map because it costs fucking Au$6 for a middy of shit beer that has to be purchased when surrounded by kids and their concerned parents at a gig one expects to be 18+. The Europeans certainly have a different perspective on bar licenses than the tightarse ORGL of Oz. Anyway, first band up was Band Geek Mafia, a sweet band name in a generic sort of way and what they played was refreshing in a generic sort of way. It was a blend of punk, ska and some hardcore growls thrown in from the brass section. Being a German band, their melodies were catchy as fuck, as all European accented bands of this collective (think Millencolin) seem to have. They were playing to about 5 people but got their point across and are worth a listen on a casual surf through My Space Music.

Who the hell played next? Ah that’s right Guttermouth. The crowd didn’t grow for these veterans of the toilet humour Cali punk scene. They ambled on stage, pissed at the fact they were playing to an empty room and snapped off Bofferding. But none the less to the 3 people that were actually familiar with their pieces, it was a fun show highlighted by the crude banter coming from frontman Mark’s slurred larynx. They pumped out plenty of classics: Do The Hustle, She’s Got The Look, Skater’s Anthem, Marco Polo and in a disappointingly unsentimental moment refused to play Sexual Abuse. It was what went on in between tracks that made their set though, the Luxembogans amongst the 10 strong crowd did not appreciate their brand of fart and masturbation jokes and abuse was being hurled in all kinds of dialect. One unfortunate girl yelled something tenable to frontman Mark’s ears: “We don’t like your jokes!” and he proceeded to tear strips off her. “Well I don’t give a fuck! I don’t like your t-shirt: – œI’m here not’? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Look at my tits? Well obviously it can’t be saying look at your tits because you don’t have any! We’re punk rock, we’re not liberal minded and we don’t give a fuck!” The poor girl didn’t understand the innocent Western ways of sledging and neither did her militant looking brother. They finished the show by separating the crowd into those who liked them and those who wanted to do sadistic European torture acts to them and played to the side of the room that wasn’t a torture risk. A short-lived pit even formed at one stage. All in all a very bizarre experience that only a cold fucking November Thursday in Luxembourg could have mustered.

So the show actually turned into a show once Less Than Jake hit the stage, an overweight looking Chris plodded to the front proclaiming he had lost weight? And the rest of the crew did their usual thing. Playing all the hits, forgetting about their moment of disparity with In With The Out Crowd and also throwing in some new songs for good measure. There was the typical engagement with the eleventeen year old femmes and in a Luxembourg moment, one of the mum’s of the eleventeen year olds got up on stage and got her skank step on. There was also some spook standing at the front of the – œpit’ (inverted commas there for good reason) who Chris and Roger decided to label as Chris’ Uncle Alfred from Poland because he was about 60 years old. Whether this was legit or not, who knows but it was bloody strange seeing this man at the front of the stage at a Less Than Jake gig in Luxembourg. The pit he was standing at the front of was not short of dickheads and there seemed to be no real idea of how a mosh pit works, making it a frustrating event to be involved in. Roger thanked the crowd with appreciation for the fact that it was their first time playing in Luxembourg and they actually had fans (most of whom were tourists anyway) and then they were out.

Plenty of mingling went on after the show, with LTJ’s Roger as always only having time for chats with those without penises and in a potential defamation case for fasterlouder, a sloshed Mark from Guttermouth was overhead attempting to sweet talk a young New Zealand girl; which resulted in her telling him her – œDad was over there’. Luxembourg: Talk about a hole in a one.