A review of a band from 2004 (2004)

From The Fly

KENNEDY SOUNDTRACK, UNWRITTEN LAW
Liverpool Stanley Theatre

There’s a group of lads, around 16-18 years old, moshing jus’ like MTV, during Kennedy Soundtrack’s set. Violent and vehement, the cackling Carlsberg-fuelled roughhousing is as rambunctious as anything Johnny Knoxville ever did. In their dreams. As the seething limbflailers slam each other around this beat-gravid atmosphere, I notice a kid, no more than 13, and dressed down in a sorta mini-me mishmash of nu-metal off-the-peg punk-parsimony, buzzing round the outskirts of the scrimmage.

Whilst the Kennedys’ frontfukka Nic blunderbusses his lyrical way through 24/7, the kid jumps toward the middle of this lairy lot, straining to smackdown with the coolies. He gets an elbow in the head and dazedly kisses the floor. The band roar along regardless, with their Faith No More / RATM reshapings no more evident than on singles Killing Music and Wrong Day.

Brushed aside for a second, third, fourth time, the lad’s soon covered in stale lager and has fagends clinging to his clothes. By the time the Soundtrack leave the stage – after album title track Tale of 2 Cities – he surely must be bruised to buggery and back.

Punk fiends Unwritten Law jaunt their way onstage and produce a melodic threshing machine that’s part No Means No and part Lagwagon. Jump around! Jump around! Pogo! Here we go…

Undaunted by previous treatment, the kid dusts himself down as best he can and dives right back on in. And something strange happens. Suddenly he’s dictating the destruct-gang’s every dancemove. Having been dismissed, teethkicked, bashed and bollixed, his vitality, persistence and blood-battered visage have eventually lent him respec’, poise and status.

The smile as he hits the floor the next time is of triumph, and it hits me with some force that perhaps the kid understands the Music Industry better than all of us.