Old punks never die, we just pogo less and less ...and type much more slowly over the course of a fair few days, and then procrastination took its hold when it came to the pics. So hopefully this dear diary entry won’t be too disjointed. It doesn't help that my first couple of attempts at posting something here went horribly wrong a couple of times and I got rather discouraged. Even today I accidentally closed the tab while making adjustments and lost it all again. Thankfully I'd written and inserted pictures offline, I just lost the resizing of the pics and a few added tweaks. Pesky clumsy fingers. 
MUTANT MONSTER at The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham 27 November 2017
I’d wanted to see MM last year when they were over, but it didn’t happen. So this year after loosing to rather a bad week of aches, to cheer myself up I went hunting for interesting gigs and found that MM would be playing in Cardiff again. Instantly I ordered a ticket and booked a cheap bed for that night, I didn’t want to miss them again this year. Then, a couple of weeks later and in a fit of panic having lost a couple more days, I booked another ticket. This time for their Birmingham gig which would be happening a couple of days before their Cardiff gig. Hoping that if I wound up having to miss one of the gigs, I’d still be able manage the other one. But obviously I had the intention of going to both gigs.
The weeks and days counted down and the day for going to Birmingham drew around. I was feeling pretty rough, but thankfully a mate gave me a lift to the railway station to save me the added trauma of catching a bus into town.
I often manage to get lost despite always taking a printed map, and Birmingham seems to be particularly unlucky for me. Unfortunately my printer was running out of ink and so the map I printed was very faint and, as it turned out, was not much use to me ‘cos I couldn’t read it. So I got lost three times despite knowing where I should be going. I’ll blame it on the painkillers.
So when I eventually got to The Sunflower Lounge, I’d walked too far and needed a rest. Fortunately the tiny bar at street level was almost empty, the gigs are held in a large cellar room which is entered through a door towards the back of the bar. I sat and downed a pint of tooth-rot before going down to the gig.
A few people had been wandering through to the gig while I was lazing about upstairs but when I got to the gig room, the place was reasonably full and the stage front was packed three deep with rabid MM fans who’d already picked their spot. The guy on the door was the same guy who’d put on Necronomidol down in London a few of months back. He later told me that he’d put in a fair bit of effort with promoting this gig and was a bit disappointed by the turnout, but at least he had enough cash to pay the bands. One oversight he had made was that there was a poster on the pub’s entrance announcing saying that tonight’s gig was a completely different bunch of bands. Probably something left over from a previous gig.
Once inside the gig I made a quick wander to the merch table which was groaning under the weight of goodies that MM had loaded it with. There were t-shirts, about 9 different CDs, wrist bands, badges, tengui emblazoned with the band’s name, bandannas and a fair bit more. Too much for me to take in at one time and stuff was already flying off the table. Before their set, MM were manning the merch table with the one member of road crew that they’d brought over with them and during the gig he also took photos of the band when they were on-stage.
I glanced over the room to look for somewhere handy to slump and saw the perfect spot for me to lean. At the entrance, there are another set of stairs leading up to an area not open to the public and halfway up there is a short flat area before the stairs resume and with a very useful handrail for leaning on. My head was about two feet below ceiling height. Perfect.
The first band up was The Courtesy Group, a local band who’d brought along a few fans with them. Somewhere above, Tan has posted a vid of them from that night which gives a reasonable showing of what they were like. A local band for local people singing songs about local things. They told us they’d been in the studio and had one song left to finish and that the new CD would be out in January. That brought a few cheers.
The singer with his very loud shirt had some difficulty in keeping himself to the stage. He joined the crowd at the front for a while and then prowled around the room dragging a very long mic lead behind him. He sang from behind the bar at the back of the room and even sang from the other side of the entry door while peering through the glass at us. They were well received by those assembled there and were quickly finished.
During the break between bands, the room suddenly emptied as everyone rushed to the bar at the back of the room and I probably could have got to the stage front, but was happy where I was slumped. It didn’t take long for MM to get their kit set up and then they were on.
Dressed in matching DMs, skin tight black trousers and almost matching striped shirts, they certainly looked the part. With a brief flourish and a quick “Hello!” from Meana, then, from the very first notes of “Abnormal”, they really sounded the part. As The Ejected used to sang, “Fast and loud, punk and proud”, MM have previously told us they will stay punk forever.
Instantly the crowd was with Mutant Monster, and I wasn’t the only person trying to sing along though most of the noise was coming from the stage barnacles - some of whom were also dressed in shirts matching the bands’. Our “singing” along was made fairly easy with chorus chants of “Oi! Oi! Oi!” or “Hey! Hey! Hey!” depending on the song and with a decent selection of songs performed in English or with occasional English lines.
From where I was standing, the lighting wasn’t very good for Mutant Monster despite one bank of ceiling mounted lights being just in front of me. It seemed like the lighting rig had been set up for a four-piece band featuring an un-evolved ape-like creature on drums, some sort of beast on bass and a scary-looking guitarist with less teeth than me. With all of them lurking in the shadows at the edges of the stage and only gods-gift to singers being allowed in the spotlight. This lighting set-up may have suited the support band, but wasn’t too kind on a trio of Japanese beauties especially as both singers were performing in the gloom towards the edges of the stage. But I’m sure it looked fine from somewhere in the room, my misfortune at being right at the very side of the venue.
MM bounced around the stage with huge infectious smiles and during the first song we were treated to Be and Meana giving us their mirrored extra high kicks at centre stage, to let us know that MM had landed, just in case everyone hadn’t already noticed. There were a couple of slightly off notes during Abnormal to remind us the band wasn’t in a recording studio and able to do another take. But those were the only slightly off moments in an otherwise very tight set and could easily have gone unnoticed. Slightly distracting was that one of the cymbals which Chad was playing was so bent and battered that is sounded more like she was hitting a metal beer tray - but she easily overcame that handicap.
From the very first song, Meana let us know that we were expected to join in and chant “Oi! Oi! Oi” then during the final notes of the first song, Abnormal, “Welcome to Mutant Monster show” was called out, and it was straight into Bara Bara accompanied by lots of happy fist pumping from the crowd and this pretty much set the tone for their whole set.
Fast, high power action from the stage with hair dancing and audience participation on backing vocals and MM made sure that we know when to join in. The band and audience were all having fun, smiles and laughs on stage spilling over happy smiling audience faces. At gigs, I don’t often get the chance to see the whole crowd and their reaction to the band, but this time, from my lofty perch I could see a room full of happy people. Not much dancing, but a forest of fists went up at the right times and there were lots of folks singing along, much reminding me of a Shonen Knife gig.
After a fist-pumping handful of songs, the beautiful rolling bass line from the start of “Yuryorenai” started washing over the room meaning it was time for Meana to give us the band introductions. “OK, we’ll introduce ourselves. OK?... OK!?”
A cheer rose from the crowd. “Thank-you,” she said.
First pointing towards the bass player, “BE on bass. My sister, my sister”, Meana told us . A cheer rose again and BE smiled even wider. “Thank-you.” she said and nodded while still playing those compelling few notes over and over again.
.jpg)
“And”, Meana said, unable to hide a mischievous smile and now pointing towards the drummer, “my sister” (that brought cheeky smiles and laughs from the other band members), “ Suzanna on drums.” Chad stood up, waived and pointed a drumstick towards the crowd then gave a quick cymbal roll.
“What!” I thought, “Are my ears deceiveing me?“ Did Meana really say what I thought she said?”
.jpg)
“And...” she continued while pointing her thumbs towards herself, “...I’m, ...I’m... Meana! Thank-you”
The bass run had been continuing throughout the band intros, then the guitar joined in followed by the drums and we raced onwards into another of my fave MM songs and my confusion was completely forgotten in music.
From the back of the stage, Chad really let us know she was there. She had cymbals and wasn’t afraid to use them. But for me, it was Be who stole the stage with her day-glow, yellow bass strings which screamed “Look at my beautiful fingers!”, not that I needed much encouragement to gaze in wonder at her lovely hands.
Before the gig, there were a few songs that I’d especially hoped to hear and a few classic Mutant Monster moments which I needed to see. I wasn’t disappointed.
I’ve already mentioned BE and Mina’s high kicks at the start of their set and a few more solo kicks got thrown in later. I’m sure no one can resist Mina’s cute wiggling of her bum at the audience during one of the songs, and we also got treated to her flicking her hair with her hands during “We Don’t Wanna Be Just Cute”. Chad did her drummer moments that I’d wanted to see from her and looked like she was having a great time in the gloom.
Yes, MM performed a good number of my hoped for songs, but even if they’d missed out all of them, it wouldn’t have mattered. Because every song they started to play was “This is my favourite Mutant Monster song!” Then they’d start the next song and I was “This is my favourite Mutant Monster song!”, this happened over and over again. Yeh, I was grinning like a pumpkin lantern for the whole show.
During the final song of the set, Meana, chose one lucky barnacle to ride on his shoulders while still playing her guitar. Then all too soon MM had raced through to their set and the room went black and after a few moments the dim room lights came on announcing the end of the gig. A crush quickly formed around the merch table and MM rushed to join their road manager at the merch table to sell and sign lots of goodies for the fans.
Being a doddery old gig, I hung back until the scrum around the merch table had eased, then went over to grab a few precious things. I’d really wanted one of the stripy shirts like MM were wearing, but they were only selling them as t-shirts. I still needed to have one so asked for one in a large size only to be told they’d all sold out. Medium fits me, I just tend to go oversize and they had the full range in medium. I don’t remember which band member it was, but they quickly arranged one shirt of each colour along the length of her arm to display them all to me.
“Too many to choose from” I said, “I like them all!” There was one with Meana red stripes, one with BE yellow stripes, one with Chad green stripes, and also one with bright purple stripes. I touched one of the purple stripes and went “Ooh! That one!”
MM all giggled and handed the “purple” shirt over. I also grabbed a copy of Abnormal – UK edition for them to sign and a big, pre-signed tour poster. In the few words we exchanged, it seems all members speak English, but I was too much in awe of the band to try and chat to them, so clutching my goodies, I wandered off back to the hotel and managed it without getting lost.
Back in my hotel room I discovered why MM had all giggled when I went “Ooh!” and picked the t-shirt with the purple stripes. Sure the stripes looked to be bright purple under the blue lighting at the gig. Under normal lighting those stripes are actually a bright pink. I like pink, so I don’t mind, but the bright purple was what I’d been wanting. Its still my fave t-shirt. The lighter stripes are bleached stripes and the coloured stripes are painted on. The “patches” really are patches and have been sewn in place. A lovely shirt to own even though I’ve already managed to stain the white MM patch with spilled tea. Ho hum.
More pics
here.
i bought another t-shirt
cd single (2010)
