The Dead 60s

Taking to the stage to the sound of sirens, The Dead 60s produce an alarming franticness and immediacy tonight.

The smoke before the fire comes from Little Flames, who are brilliantly marshalled by singer Eva Petersen, who is snottier than a used handkerchief. The stop-start nature of ‘Goodbye Little Rose’ is the highlight, and systematic of their brilliant PopTart songs. Always smouldering away, tracks occasionally pop up for a gasp of breath before furiously burning away again. The whole set is a breath of fresh sea air, riding a surf pop wave destined for the Blondie**-white sands of Punk Beach.

Which is when the sirens begin for The Dead Sixties who are both a little bit special, and a little bit Specials. There’s also plenty of Strummer* and PIL* in there too, but as they successfully mix up punk, dub, reggae, ska, and bongo solos, you soon forget about the influences, instead concentrating on the excellence. This isn’t a moronic three-chord mash up; instead you have inventive funk sections, spidery guitar improvs and a rhythm section as tight as a blue whale dumped in an alleyway. The reggae songs create a brilliant aural swagger while single ‘Riot Radio’ has an arresting punchiness.

It’s refreshing to see a band from Liverpool which doesn’t carry the albatross of The Btles**, and the sixties are definitely dead tonight. Instead of flower power we get the paranoid reality of concrete jungles, with suffocating lyrics like: “She’s got a loaded gun, and it’s pointed at me, I’ve got nowhere to run”.

Confidence onstage is bordering on arrogance, while lead guitarist Ben Gordon looks like his veins, eyeballs and heart are all going to explode onstage at once. When he falls down with a fallen speaker stack, the set doesn’t come crashing down but only adds to the unpredictable nature of the gig. Tonight was a warning but soon they won’t need the sirens to tell everyone how dangerously good they are.