A close to capacity crowd had made its way to the Brudenell on Wednesday in anticipation of some noisy rock and roll from Ex Hex, and we were not to be disappointed.
One member of the audience was Mr Steve “Lammo” Lamacq himself, who told me he had travelled up from London specifically to see the band.
Irish 5 piece Princess opened the night, and the music they produced belied their age and appearance. With the lead singer a spit for Harry Stiles, and the female guitarist looking about 13, they produced a tight, very assured Krautrock, Shoegaze 6 song set. One to watch this year for me.
Then it was time for the 3 Washington D.C girls that comprise Ex Hex to take the stage ; Mary Timony, Betsy Wright and Laura Harris.
They kicked off with Waterfall from Rips, their only album so far, (although they are already veterans of different bands between band, Mary was very recently part of Wild Flag with Carrie Brownstein, Rebecca Cole and Janet Weiss) then quickly went into 6 Music playlist favourite Don’t Wanna Lose which warmed the crowd up nicely.
Beast was just that - massively elongated from the album version by an electric guitar solo and even some bass/guitar duelling. The noise they were getting out of just guitar, bass and drums was huge, and the shapes they were throwing around the stage were good old retro 70’s style - feet on the monitors, back to back guitar playing and even some head banging.
With only a 11 track album to chose from, the band then played some tracks from a Boston band called The Real Kids. I’m not sure any of us present knew these next few songs, but it didn’t detract from the gig and the atmosphere as it was more of the same - ballsy, shambolic rock and roll.
The rest of the set was more from Rips, until the appropriately titled Outro ended the night ; just over an (exhilarating) hour on stage, and we were all done. Good old, no-nonsense rock and roll. We loved it.
Keith @kjsmith4082
