BIG BLACK, LEEDS POLYTECHNIC

Continental plates crash together, mighty peaks thrust upwards to touch the heavens and boulder scoffing glaciers grope and hack their way across half a hemisphere. Yup! Big Black are playing their last British gig ever! Burly slammers have trekked to Leeds from all over the country (but mostly Gwent) to mosh-dance the night away to these Illinois angst metal pioneers. With guitars strapped on like machine guns they duck, strain and dance the horrible death twitch of spiders on a hotplate.

The minimal beat box bumps and grinds at singer Albini's footswitch command producing brief moments of ear splitting silence which are in turn violated by the sub-animal yelps of his voice box. Heavy stuff, but not merely some cathartic hardcore racket, because the whole thing is underpinned by a cruel and nervous wit which manifests itself in both the sparse twisted lyrics and the onstage banter.

Maybe it is the end of term feeling, but there's a few more jokes than I bargained for. "I'm a geetar picker from Nashville and here's a song that got me out of jail once," they yell, as a battered axe pretends to saw through the penitentiary bars. The bass player is introduced as Thor-Zeus and there is a competition to discover the name of his most private part; Sandy Nelson and Tigger are accepted as entries. They even encore with Kraftwerk's The Model'!

Frivolity aside, the amount of energy used up on stage and the sheer power and control displayed on songs like 'Camp Running Deer' and 'Bad Penny' makes their demise a bittersweet event. Quit while you're ahead.

Charlie Dick

I got this from an unattributed clipping.