LIVE!!! Blob Halford Birthday Party, featuring The Dirty Looks, Mr Thank You, and Blob Halford



BLOB HALFORD BIRTHDAY PARTY

Blob Halford / 77 Spears / Mr Thank You / The Dirty Looks

The Grafton Arms, Manchester

23/03/24


Grey skies open and rain pelts the concrete playground of Manchester; the scent of wet streets and the urban white noise offer a familiar sensory delight whilst floating down Oxford Road on my way to catch the World’s Greatest MF’n Rock & Roll Band celebrate their birthday with a hot night in the weird and wonderful world of the DIY underground.


Opening the show with gothic charm and detached cool, newcomers The Dirty Looks filter the artsy side of UK punk through a distinctive Greenwich Village lens. Carnivalesque keys swirl amidst proto-punk guitars and a hyperactive rhythm section, setting the tone for Gracie Vaux and her literate tales of nocturnal wanderings. Dramatic ballads and slashing romps are natural bedfellows in this gang’s theatre of the strange. Keep a lookout for The Dirty Looks.


Mr Thank You follow, all keen angles and taut rhythms that loosen at exactly the right moments, like a rollercoaster for the body and the brain. Stabbing guitar melodies and mammoth bass tone intertwine across shifting time-signatures, offering monstrous groove and sugary ear-worms in equal dosage. The yelped vocals and precise instrumentation nod to certain transatlantic nineties-noughties moments, with noisy wig-outs and sombre introspection adding light and shade to the mix. The band are tight and the tunes are sharp. Thank you Mr Thank You.


It’s time. The rain may be thinning to a mist outside, but a storm is brewing within The Grafton Arms as Blob Halford stride purposefully to the stage. Bravado and satiric performance frame a juggernaut of punk-blues riffs, laconic drums, and wry lyrical references. The ol’ cliche about making a huge noise for a two-piece couldn’t ring any more true, with saturated guitars blasting in pitch-shifted octaves and double-kick drums playing to a Mo’ Wax half-time groove. The crowd are up for it, as they should be, for this is a celebration after all. There’s elements of stoner, funk, and R&B in the mix here, a monolithic set of muscular rhythms that provide the liturgical score for the the divinely sanctioned Word, as delivered by the magnetic preacher standing shirtless and open-hearted on the precipice of the pulpit. The communal atmosphere brings a diverse group of misfits, vagabonds, loners, and stoners to the floor to rejoice in the church of Blob Halford. Praise be y’all, everyone is welcome in this house.


Big thanks to The Grafton Arms for opening their doors to welcome one and all, and to Michael Webster for nailing down the sound. Big love.

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