Every now and then something comes along that sucks your f**king face off. The beast can come in many forms: sometimes a song, sometimes an album, sometimes a band. However, up and until now it has never taken the shape of a rocket-fuelled war-painted tribe of misfits from Croydon. Yes. Nine is the magic number. Look and listen...

The Basics: There are nine of them. Two guitars, bass, drums, three backing singers and two male vocalists, one’s anthemic camp matching the other’s brutish roar. FACT: However you may feel, this band are going to cause a stir. FACT: This is a good thing.

The Show: (For in the world of Do Me Bad Things, a show it most definitely is.) For starters, if one more person tries to clamber onto the stage the drummer will have to eat the bass player’s headstock for the duration of the set. Within seconds of the first power chords, the outrageous spectacle of this band’s live performance begins to take hold. There’s almost too much to take in. Words only may not contain the requisite juice to describe their sound, suffice to say it is a cacophony of everything you’re ever going to need on a Saturday night, and some of the songs are so huge that it’s a wonder I’m still alive. Highlight and forthcoming single ‘The Song Rides’ is a rumbling eruption that... well... have you ever seen Van Halen fucking The Supremes? I have now - it’s delicious. DMBT play songs that sound like they were constructed in Willy Wonka’s aircraft hanger. The great thing is, of course, that instead of a mis-matched sludge of nothing, we get a raucous pomposity that is a source of ultimate pleasure.

The debate surrounding the idea of putting enjoyment and entertainment above affected aloofness has been raging ever since that other band... their name escapes me... began ruling Planet Rock this time last year. Well, it is clear where DMBT stand, and this is going to piss people off, again. They have costume changes - ooooh... they dance a bit - ooooh... they look as though they’re having a good time onstage, ooh – fuck yeah, it’s definitely a list of things to get riled about – so offensive to the taste!

It remains to be seen whether this juggernaut of rock and soul will end up inhabiting the same air space as their label mates – at the moment it feels slightly under cooked in places and not all of the songs are as memorable as you’d like them to be – but ‘tis just the beginning. Regardless of niggling imperfections tonight’s gig is disgustingly addictive and a joy from start to finish. It can only be a mythic coincidence that as I write this an hour after Do Me Bad Things leave the stage, ‘Caberet’ is on the television. Metallic Soul, baby. Dig It.

Photo © 2004 Ian Rendall www.grassrootsx.com