Terminally Groovie

THEY CAME! THEY SWORE! THEY STAGGERED!

NED'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN
MEGA CITY 4
WOLVERHAMPTON CIVIC HALL
GIG OF THE YEAR! By several thousand kilometres!
Ned's bassist Alex arrives in the band's dressing room only to be scolded by his mum: "Look at the mess in here ... it's just like your bedroom." Brilliant. Is this the real life, or is this fantastic?
This is the gig that proves all Neds sceptics wrong. FACT! Where Mega City 4 return from Europe to rubbish all their recent, wayward reviews. The Big Event before a sell-out crowd of 2,200 delirious delinquents. We could say something here about the lack of hype surrounding these bands, but that goes without saying. This whole scenario is so natural, yet so bizarre.
The video crews (lights, cameras, fraggle factions!), the merchandise stall looking like a playground bundle, the touts outside charging £60 a ticket. The big notices warning that stage-diving is banned.
The obsession shown towards these groups tonight hasn't been seen at the Civic Hall since Morrissey played here two years ago. By the end of the night the Neds have sold 1,000 T-shirts, played a handful of encores and confirmed the impact they'll make in the mainstream in 1991, even if they were stuck in snowdrifts for the next two days.
SOMEWHERE AMIDST this saga of blizzards and (snow)blind fanaticism there's even some music. Fledgling locals Drop are first to brace tonight's boards. Drop are phased youths with flopping fringes and a niggling over-reliance on hypnotic, swirling effects. This is their fourth ever gig and already the majors are sweating in pursuit.
Which can hardly be said of the gypsy-style Mega City 4, about whom one needs to forget everything written over the past four months.
"I thought our last review was really funny," grins singer Wiz. "It said, They do 150 gigs a year, and where has it got them?'. When we read that, we were sitting in a four star hotel in Japan!"
Yet, swaggering on tonight in shorts and tangled dreadlocks, the Megas prove that, far from driving their tour van into the ground and running out of creative steam in the process, the past 12 months have seen them mutate into a more sophisticated machine: not quite mean, but menacing all the same.
Wiz's lyrics have turned inwards with a terrific, sensitive impact, doubling the power in their songs, like the opening anti-apathy address of 'Who Cares' (with its plaintive payoff "Don't sit on your ass while your world just falls to pieces"- also lifted for the front of one of their T-shirts).
Similarly, the swashbuckling thrashes of yore are augmented by subtle changes of pace and sweeping rushes. They still get to the point, but now it's sharper. There's less bluster, but it's no less blistering. 'Revolution' chimes like church bells in a hurricane. 'No Such Place As Home' confirms their melodic instincts, harmonies melting into bruised chords. And 'January' is dragged triumphantly from the Bull & Gate days, a steaming finale to an inspirational 40 minutes.
AS THE Megas' 70th tour kicks into life, the Neds' annual trek comes to a screeching halt. This is their big farewell to 1990, a year which propelled the Bash Street Kids On The Block from noisy pranksters (generally perceived as a 'substitute' Wonder Stuff) to major contenders, signed to CBS with their own character beginning to show through.
"We almost threw our TV out of the window in the hotel last night," says Alex. "It was wobbling on the windowsill - it only needed a little nudge to push it over. But in the end we threw some tea bags out instead."
It's ironic that the Neds' first foray into the (s)limelight was actually supporting the Megas at Fulham Greyhound 18 months ago. Now, the tables haven't simply been turned, they've been dismantled and completely redesigned.
The question is, how have they managed it? To the uninitiated, Ned's Atomic Dustbin must come across as a gang of hairy Muppets (Huppets?) making a noise which is about a graceful as a migraine-ridden gorilla eating steel girders, more elephant than elegant with its remorseless barrage of double trouble bass guitars and skeletal melodies.
Yet we watch a huge piggyback conga snake through the crowd, moptops going bonkers on the balcony and witness the deployment of marshmallows (!) as stagebound missiles as dozens holler along-word perfect - to spanking new, unreleased creations like 'Selfish' and 'You'. And we understand.
The dumb fringes; the (s)punky, grating guitar that could demolish a pound of cheese at 20 paces; the 30 (count 'em) different T-shirt designs they've had over the last 18 months; the frantic, youthful enthusiasm; even the forthcoming album title, 'God Fodder' (Wolvo-speak for, uh, "good food"). It all adds up to a cunningly down-to-earth package, a comic book collage that's rock hard and even harder to resist.
'Terminally Groovie' pulsates threateningly with hardcore passion, while 'Kill Your Television' and 'What Gives My Son' embrace the world of whacked-out slogans and unerringly instant anthems. As for'Happy!'.. heck, it's THE word of the evening.
You find yourself, willingly, carried along by this celebration rollercoaster, aware of its implications for next year. Neds, in their own cute, crude way, have grown out of the Small Ugly Band pigeonhole.
They are sexy rock'n'roll. They do matter in the current pop climate. And they do have a message for their critics.
"We pissed in their crisp packets tonight," says Alex in that coarse Brummie way.
"Standing on stag looking out for the first time, I thought 'We deserve this'."
Simon Williams & Steve Lamacq