Combat Rock

There are few places in the world better than London on a warm and sunny bank holiday weekend... particularly when coupled with an abundance of the kind of quality music only the capital can provide. I'll come back to Saturday evening's superb Crosscentral 'festival', but while it's relatively fresh in my mind I have to rave about Hard-Fi's secret(ish) carnival gig on Sunday.

The stage took some finding, and turned out to be an unassuming covered platform at the base of a towerblock - pretty far out from heaving masses lining the main carnival route. Being carnival the music was at ear-drum rupturing levels, particularly from the DJs playing bloc(k) party hip-hop tracks when we first arrived.. to what was at the billed starting time of 5pm a pretty sparse crowd... but by 5:45 when the band appeared there was a large exciteable throng bubbling in the heat.



In the shadow of the Westway, and with reggae (and skunk) floating through the air I was immediately put in mind of The Clash... and Hard-Fi pay them a huge debt with their sound as well. Deafening Dub effects ring out, and guitarist Ross plays a lot of skanking chords. The focus of the band is clearly singer Richard though. His piercing dark eyes make him a presence on stage you can't keep your eyes off, and vast majority of the audience were in thrall.



I can't remember the order they played all too well. I think they started with 'Middle Eastern Holiday', then 'Tied Up Too Tight', 'Gotta Reason' and an early appearance of their big hit 'Hard to Beat'. 'Hard to Beat' was clearly the highlight, but the rest of their material is well up to scratch. 'Cash Machine' i've posted here before, and remains one of my favourite tracks... the only thing I didn't really enjoy was a rather pointless cover of '7 Nation Army', but everyone else seemed to enjoy it, so what do I know!








As if the gig couldn't get any better, my phone beeped just before the last song to let me know that England had won the Fourth Test. Cue : Mayhem. And forthcoming single 'Living for The Weekend'.

I'm prone to saying this rather too often, but that was one of the best gigs i've ever seen.


HARD-FI - MIDDLE EASTERN HOLIDAY