STRANGE but true: Black Lips very nearly found themselves soundtracking a television advert for Tesco.
It may have been their reputation for vomiting, nudity, smooching each other on-stage or their sketchy lyrics, but the supermarket giant pulled out and the deal was consigned to the dustbin of “what might have been”.
There were very few antics to speak of tonight; indeed the band have said they’ve matured, but they still sounded like the Banana Splits would if they’d fallen out of the van after a 12-hour champagne bender (in a good way), as guitarist Cole Alexander, Jared Swilley, Ian Saint Pé and cartoonishly animated drummer Joe Bradley all shared shouty vocal duties (all sounding exactly the same).
Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, the band’s magpie sound is a joyfully ramshackle collision of surf guitar, Velvet Underground jangle-dirges and British invasion-era stomp. While they’re unlikely to win any medals for pioneering innovation, their heroic commitment to having a good time easily swept their young audience along with them, reaching a peak with a mass singalong during Bad Kids.
The racket they make belies how well put together their songs are, and Alexander and Saint Pé’s guitar work is less rough around the edges than it looks – not that musicianly professionalism stopped them leaping around like nutcases.
Noisy, self-aware and great fun.
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