Terminally Groovie

HAMMER OF THE DOGS

NED'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN
LONDON KILBURN NATIONAL

GENIUS! COMPLETE bloody genius! From out of the shirt-flapping, rat-tailed, beer-faced hordes emerges a figure. A specimen. A human mongrel that's gnawed through Its string. It's eyes light up. It spots a gap In the crowd. Faster than a flaming whippet It dashes for the space, springs like a rabid antelope towards a crowd barrier, trips on the metal bar, and swan-dives forehead first on to the sopping floor. BOSH!
Oh dear, ambulance time. But no! He's up, standing there boss-eyed and beaming. His right arm goes up In the air, saluting his applauding fellow Ned's fans. "YIIIIIIIESSSS!" he bawls triumphantly. "FAAKIN' YIIIIIIIESSS!. It's a great moment. A Ned's moment. It is the spirit of the Ned's in microcosm. Curry-house chutzpah. Victory In defeat.
Outside the Kllburn National, before the first barre-chord is struck, the Dustbin spirit is abroad. Traveller fans weighed down by kit bags troop up the High Road. Coaches park up, puking out mini-dread-headed surf shops on legs. Everyone is eating kebabs. Some of the kebabs appear to be eating Ned's fans. There are two Ned-girls sat on the Ballroom's steps, crying into their kit-bags. A mad old drunk is spitting Special Brew at everyone and everyone is telling him to 'Fakk off'. It feels like it's drizzling, even if it isn't. The right mood has been set.
"Orrrolght Clint, can you sign me T-shirt?" Within the stinking fetid maw of 'the gig', Ned-fever bolls over. Clint Popple Is a mega-star here. A Ned-child thrusts a black marker pen at him and points at his T-shirt.
"Er. . .don't think i can," mutters Clint. He is not to be tricked so easily. The T-shirt Is black. The pen is black. Black on black would be silly. But the Ned-child Insists. He finds a tiny white bit for Clint to scrawl on. It will wash off instantly, of course, but as a gesture it will last forever.
In Ned-land all alchemy Is possible. White into black. Diluted lager into the elixir of fun. A crap night of technical failures' and prematurely ejaculating thrash-grunge pop, into a 'memorable occasion'.
Naturally, it is all delirium in a basket. Back from Japan, and back from making giblets out of EMF in America, ver Ned's show little sign of being shagged out. A chaos of head-banging nutters, they thunder through 'What Gives My Son?' and 'Until You Find Out' like an Inter-City express driven by an alcoholic trying to make closing time. Fast.
Clearly, from their Japanese experiences the Ned's have learned a thing or two. Mainly, the sumo wrestler approach. If you're heavy enough, you can get away with being ugly and ungainly. After two pounding, pummellng, ultra-quick spurts i am convinced that the Ned's are a perfect hybrid of Megadeth and The Banana Splits. The power and the idiocy. But then the power cuts out.
Half way through 'Not Sleeping Around' a serious Gig-us interruptus situation takes place. The PA cuts out, and Jonn and his blister-fingered cohorts are left high and dry. They re-start the song and the PA cuts out. Then they try again and it cuts out again. This is a major test of Jonn's 'all round entertainer' potential.
What to do? A dead PA and squillions of pissed off Ned-olds screaming "YOU FAT BASTARD! YOU FAT BASTARD!" But on the brink of defeat, Jonn In a crowd-manipulating move worthy of Billy Graham, lifts his shirt to reveal. . .A flat stomach! Instantly the baying rabble is placated. "YOU SKINNY BASTARD! YOU SKINNY BASTARD!" chant the satisfied mosh-heads.
It's very much like Dunkirk, all over again. For 20 minutes while frantic roadies try and fix the sound, the Ned's spirit wells up In the crowd. "BOOO!" goes the rallying cray. "BULLSHIT!" they sing. And finally they muck in amongst themselves, putting on their own show of human pyramid building, hitting each other, and chanting "OH THE OKEY COKEY!", "HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO, HERE WE GO" and "ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE!"
In retrospect this is the highlight of the soiree. The kind of thing that might prompt the sociologically inclined to say that the Ned's were "far more a vehicle for communal bonding and auto-hysteria than a musical phenomenon". There's some truth In this
Maybe over-compensating for the technical cock-up, they plug back in and plough through the set kamikaze style (another Japanese trick, perchance?). Jonn's vocals are instantly sat upon by a sound akin to a flatulent hippo reaching terminal velocity and, apart from Rat's rather fancy solo-ing, the night turns into something of an undifferentiated splurge. SPLLUUUURRR - 'Grey Cell Green' - PLUURRRR - 'Cut Up' - LUUURRR.
It is not a great evening for nuance, although 'Your Complex' at least has a pleasant Big Country-like lilt to it. Somewhere in the midst of the pounding a substantial part of the crowd decide to form a two-tier human snake which congas around the downstairs. The man at the front holds a giant Inflatable hammer which he thonks people on the head with. He ought to be in the band.
If you Judge your night out on the amount you sweat, the volume of beer you spill, the hoarseness of your voice, the bruises on your forehad and the amount your kebab sweats, then this was a great gig. The flouncing gibbon that is Jonn puts so much into it that on the second song of the encore he has to be carried offstage. But the Ned's have good enough songs to make them a British Ramones for the '90s. And tonight they did not do them Justice. They were The Dickies.
Roger Morton