A sunny Saturday in late summer and where better to spend it than the Stage and Radio basement beneath the blood red lights for an evening of noise? I didn’t think I’d gotten here too early but after a bit of a chinwag with the promoter’s housemate who was checking tickets at the door I went downstairs to a venue empty save for a drum kit and other sound equipment. I did half-wonder whether I was expected to open the show but thought better of it. Maybe next time?
Sat outside, tending my drink and some WhatsApp drama in a group chat, the guy at the door told me he could hear “bass drones” so it had “probably” started. The venue had filled out a bit and National Crisis, who I’d seen at the
Negative Output pre-show last month and were what brought me here tonight, opened the evening. Charli was bopping sporadically behind a synth as before, patching in wave after wave of hypnotic rhythms. Adrian this time was mostly
on guitar, producing high pitched wails as he ran what looked like a contact mic over the pick ups, before strumming in front of the left speaker, the
ebbing and crashing hum continually drowning beneath synth pulses as the guitar was held aloft and down-tuned.
“Guitar heavy” had been the impromptu theme of the evening and Si Patton stood confidently with his bass as some of the audience sat around him in a neat semicircle wearing silver foil hats. There was something of a rock and roll swagger to Si has he eyed up the audience whilst his muted rhythms dissipated into almost complete silence. Strings were then variously distorted and abused with drumsticks and other paraphernalia whilst effects pedals gave a warbling continuum to Si’s histrionic bass contortions.
The explanation for the silver foil came from Untitled Trio, as they handed out more sheets to anyone who may have been feeling left out. To call them the most conventional act of the evening does them a disservice, particularly as one part of the trio was variously manipulating what was maybe a hand-pumped harmonium, a whistle and other wind instruments, computer-hosted effects as well as something like a bent road sign, amplified and bowed. It was a
dynamic and free-flowing performance. Bass and guitar would lock in to more straightforward rhythms at junctures between rich waves of sonic textures. A proper journey. A more enterprising trio may have sold the foil as merch, although I think that would have been a bad look and I appreciated what they brought to the evening.
Before the final act, a couple of men celebrating a 50th birthday snuck downstairs. One was particularly worse for wear and seemed genuinely heartbroken that he’d missed out on the hats, so I gave him mine. This seemed to be all they were after so they left. It was pointed out to me after that I might have inadvertently enabled a crack habit. Something about the “road to hell” and “doing my part.” I’d already been thinking with earlier acts that the
audience were more of an important element at events like this and Walls of Teesside really hammered that home for me. Notionally a primitive punk performance, it transformed into a feedback-soaked ritual invoking the pain of
unspoken class divisions and managed decline,transmuting it into an embodied, sonic solidarity. I was handed the mic myself at one point and repeatedly screamed a (maybe misheard) refrain from the song “Miriam, who do you think you are?” The mic was then passed to Trador stood next to me, fervently repeating “I’m full of life, I’m full of love” for what seemed like forever. Haydn,the vocalist, embraced him several times and so did I once the mic was passed back. I loved his response and it was the magic of the performance, grounding us all in that same space with our voices. A clip on social media
just cannot convey that moment’s vitality. I hope I’ve managed to give a glimpse of it here.
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