A Wilhelm Scream

There's a moment of calm about 40 seconds into A Wilhelm Scream's final song, 'The King Is Dead', where only the five band members are onstage and the entire venue simultaneously takes a breath. Frontman Nuno Pereira looks out and smiles before his band kicks in and, in the blink of an eye, utter chaos takes hold. There're almost as many bodies crawling over the crowd's heads as there are people in the building, light rigs are kicked and suddenly a constant stream of stage-divers starts circulating. New guitarist Mike Supina launches himself forward and is held aloft by dozens of hands as he continues to shred out the riffs that have simply nailed Camden to the wall all night and, for the rest of the song, throats are torn with the effort of screaming and people jerk around in a glorious ecstasy that can be described in the most accurate terms as, quite plainly, rocking the living fuck out.

But before all that it's time for Preston's Failsafe to attempt the impossible and wrest some attention away from the headliners. (Un)Surprisingly enough, they almost manage to do so. They've been one of the best live bands in the country for a good couple of years, and now they're developing their songs beyond the short, sharp shocks that made What We Are Today one of the most exciting debut albums of the last few years. And by now they've toured enough to make the reactions to 'Unity In Progress', 'Fire At Will' and 'Actions For Answers' strong enough to suggest that all the potential and momentum they've built up thus far could be translated into something concrete. And on the strength of performances such as this, it'd be nothing but deserved.

Jim Norris has become a genuinely engaging frontman over the past three years and, as he stands on top of monitors and leans out in to the burgeoning pit, his face gurns and contorts with each belted vocal. Guitarist Matt Cogley and bassist Andy Sprake thrash about with abandon, fuzzy blurs of hair and sweat that provide the thick unorthodox rhythms that make Failsafe such an interesting prospect, all marshalled by Rob Catlow's hefty drumming – he's handles every push, crunch and change of pace with the confidence of a musician twice his age. And the constant stream of melodies and harmonies coming from Si Humphries' guitar are both the intricate icing on an already fine cake and an intricate part of Failsafe's appeal. The new songs sound massive; thick slabs of atypical rock that edge towards the unclassifiable but that, in the live setting, call to mind the heavier moments of Faith No More.

You'd have to be Herculean to make a dent in A Wilhelm Scream's reputation tonight, though, such is the fevered adoration this band inspire. And, as they rip into 'The Kids Can Eat A Bag Of Dick' and people start climbing over each other just to get closer to this band it becomes swiftly evident that tonight is not simply another punk gig at the Underworld. What 'Stab Stab Stab' and 'William Blake Overdrive' prove is that AWS aren't simply another melodic hardcore band – the frenzy in the crowd and onstage that accompanies every coruscating lick and breathtaking run isn't just a product of Some Kids Having A Mosh, this band truly matters to everyone here. Whether crushed against the monitors at the front or standing at the back of the room jerking their bodies around, every word is screamed back at Pereira, and guitarist Trevor Reilly and bassist Bri Robinson spend as much time singing back at the crowd as they do providing backing vocals. No one in this room is giving any less than their all, and it shows.

We get 'Hike', all thirty-odd seconds of it, a gloriously violent double of 'I Wipe My Ass With Showbiz' _into _'5 to 9', 'Anchor End' and 'Me Vs Morrissey In The Pretentiousness Contest (The Ladder Match)', all rendered with enough rough edges and flourishes to ensure that even the most fervent AWS fans are gifted a few surprises. And, brilliantly, the stratospheric musicianship of these guys (ever heard of a hardcore crowd going silent because a particularly and ludicrously tech bassline is so drenched in awesome? Check out videos of 'The Horse' on YouTube, you'll understand why) doesn't alienate them from their public. The enthusiasm of the air guitarists/drummers is bounced back by Supina's toothy grin, seemingly unable to believe his luck that he's just joined a band as face-shreddingly loved as this one. Watching Reilly is a pure joy, acting out the lyrics he wrote either with a series of goofy facial expressions or by simply yelling them directly down the throat of whoever's clambering up his mic-stand to get closer.

Throughout the course of their stunning set, AWS make the apparently-simple into the extraordinary. How can they imbue such a simple set of words as "Awake, arise, eat, work, shit, sleep, awake, arise" with such vitality that they're screamed back to them so lodly? Why is a simple gang-vocal "Whoa-oh-oh" in 'These Dead Streets' so thrillingly energetic? Fuck knows.

And so 'The Rip causes a primal yell of mass happiness, only topped by the aforementioned insanity ushered in by the closing performance of 'The King Is Dead'. The band leaves, wide grins on their faces. The crowd slowly filters away, all slightly stunned that a band seemingly operating within the boundaries of punk rock can provide such an emotional, passionate performance. Tonight was a lesson in treading the fine line between pure rocking out and presenting a brilliant show – being in any other band in the world must suck.

Photo: Lance Nelson