Given the omnipotent presence of the band’s lead vocalist, a hulking and shaved truck of a man whose sweat-drenched wife-basher singlet was stretched painfully over the prodigious potbelly he hung from his belt as proudly as a prizefighter might hang a championship belt, the infectious set from main support Gut was certainly memorable.

Flanked by a classic guitar-bass-drums ensemble, “Ox”, as he called himself prowled and growled, danced and pranced, twirled and whirled, sweated and swore his way through a set of blues-infused rock that, at times, borrowed more from the raucous guitar moments of The Doors than from 40 years of rockabilly and garage rock.

Ox’s vocals, ranging from Nick-Cave-like spoken barks to raspy screams and everything in between, cut with ease through the sub-heavy mix (courtesy of the mixer’s failure to curtail the distorted bass blasting from the bass player’s behemoth-sized rig), but the real highlight here was his stage performance. With the energy of a 1970s Meatloaf, and wild histrionics that conjured the spirit of Jim Morrison, Ox governed over us all, ruling not only his stage but the floor in front with a certain dictatorial dedication so conspicuously absent from the arsenal of entire generations of sooky, indie, power-pop and rock singers. This was a front-man master-class, plain and simple, and I can’t remember a vocalist who demanded so much attention from the half-room crowd… and got it.

“If I shed some blood, don’t worry,” Ox bellowed, before hitting the floor in front of the stage and barrelling through stunned patrons while yanking the mic lead that trailed behind with such force that he almost toppled a small city of people whose legs were caught in between. All the while, his band gathered speed on an accelerating tempo like a runaway coaltrain approaching climax.

There’s nothing pretty about Gut’s thick, ugly and labouring grooves, influenced by garage rock and delivered with the intensity of punk, but that’s not the intention. If Ox’s heart-attack inducing manic fits didn’t spell it out clearly enough, Gut is a blue-collar band whose railway yard riffs provide the perfect chugging accompaniment for Ox’s wage-line wailings. Fittingly, the blues is unmistakably interwoven throughout Gut’s sonic fabric so densely that my mind returned once more to The Doors – at least what the legendary jam band might’ve been if it was ‘09 instead of ‘69 and Ray Manzerak had been replaced by Les Claypool.

This was one of the best pub gigs I’ve seen this year and very little of that had to do with the group’s actual music. Still, I can’t recommend them enough. By the time they were done, I was left with a strong desire to research them more thoroughly. Alas, in stark contrast to the immensity of their live show, Gut seems to have no web presence whatsoever, and a morning-after rummage through Google sadly revealed nothing. Resultantly, I’ll be keeping a vigilant watch on the band listings over summer for a chance to see that gut one more time before the emergence of, hopefully, an album. Finding a way to harness the raw fury of this live attitude onto tape remains the challenge ahead for Ox and the chain gang, and only time will tell if they can get it done. For now, I just wish they’d printed up some Gut wife-bashers, ‘coz I’d have happily forked over for the chance to emulate Ox in front of my mirror.

A lengthy break ensued as a much older crowd filed in for the main act and mention needs to be made of their dedication to the cause. So committed is the rockabilly crowd to its strict traditions and uniforms that one might have thought he had stumbled into an assembly of extras for Back to the Future. As to be expected, it was a sea of tightly-gelled mohawks and coifs, trucker shirts and pin skirts. Given The Fireballs almost soured the evening by arriving on stage a full hour after the promised start time, there was also plenty of time to examine them all.

Make up for it they did, however; the new look four-piece careening headlong into Turn to Stone from 1992’s debut Terminal Haircut with the raw pace and ferocity one might expect from a band getting paid by the song. Don’t Mind Dying came next, preceding Big Black Hearse and crowd sing-a-long Under My Wing, and when Eddie Fury crooned “I’m only 21 and I don’t mind dying,” he sounded so fresh that it could have easily been 1993 once more.

I’d been concerned about the band’s decision to replace original guitarist Matt Black with not one but two string shredders in Dylan Villain and Pete Speed, fearing the group might lose some of its intimacy. In truth, that has happened – gone is the simplicity of the three piece; however, there are also benefits to the twin-guitar attack, not least of which is the added power it gave the band during thrash-fests like new song Youth Injection and the added support it gives to Black’s original solos. He’d also be proud, I imagine, that it now takes two men and a wall of quad boxes to recreate his maniacal madness.

The band’s harder edge became most apparent on the new material, which abandons many of the trademark 1950s hooks in favour of… (gasp) thrash metal riffs. To complement this, Eddie’s added more toms to his kit, while Joe Phantom and his familiar double bass are now supported by the biggest bass bin of all time. The effect is, at times, overwhelmingly metal and I peered around the room on more than one occasion wondering how it was affecting the rockabilly ma-and-pa faithful. Though no one seemed to be adjusting hearing aids, it was clear that Fireballs Mk II is a very different beast. That said, Eddie and the gang know exactly where they come from and the set drew liberally from the first two Fireballs albums, particularly 1995’s Life Takes Too Long. A Don’t Bother Me/Depression Manic double was followed by another newie called My Voodoo Doll, before the band pumped out XXX and Bondage – Eddie’s declaration that these songs were “all about sex” left me hoping the band’s lovemaking didn’t too closely resemble their penchant for tightly-packed 2-minute psychobilly pummellings.

The addition of Scum as the first song from 1996’s So Bad It’s Good was long overdue, a sentiment echoed by the swirling mosh of the packed pit and the endless procession of stage-diving crowd surfers, but then it was straight back to Dream Pills from Life Takes Too Long and Voodoo.

Considering the anticipation for new single Hellrider, it was a little disappointing to find it was thrash-fest that sounded a lot like the other new material and the decision to follow it with the band’s unofficial anthem and gig high-point Go Go Go felt like a mistake, if only because it served to remind everyone of the strength of the early material. Consequently, the pit whipped itself into a deranged frenzy, while dozens of punters swarmed the stage, sidestepping bouncers before torpedoing themselves headfirst into a swirling sea of spasmodic satisfaction.

A drum solo in which Eddie pounded his sticks off Joe’s double bass raised the party vibe another notch for So Bad it’s Good and while another new track threatened to disrupt momentum, this time Right or Wrong, the band plastered over the cracks with a stunning old-school finish of Life Takes Too Long, Worth a Cent and Holiday before leaving the stage.

An obligatory encore that begged for Broccoli Cock, Killer Within or Rushin’ instead yielded a bass solo, a song I shamefully have been unable to ID (making it a pretty lame choice for an encore!) and the cheesy and dated Fireball Baby, but what was there to really complain about? After almost 90 minutes and 22 songs delivered at blistering speed, no-one could argue the Fireballs hadn’t delivered. With new members and a record on the way, the night was only topped by the certainty that the Fireballs faithful won’t have to wait another year to do it all again.

Setlist

Turn to Stone
Don’t Mind Dying
Big Black Hearse
Under My Wing
Youth Injection
Don’t Bother Me
Depression Manic
My Voodoo Doll
XXX
Bondage
Scum
Dream Pills
Voodoo
Hellrider
Go Go Go
So Bad it’s Good
Right or Wrong
Life Takes Too long
Worth a Cent
Holiday

Mystery Track
Fireball Baby