Butthole Surfers

Lovvers have come a long way, baby. Almost two-hundred shows in a little over two years and they've honed the wild, sludgy punk that initially made their name into a poppier, more streamlined take on punk-rock. Where once they were like Unwound coming unwound, they're now a tightly coiled unit, tonight's gig a far cry from the noisy chaos that earmarked their early shows.

Thankfully, they've sacrificed none of their inherent Lovversness - the essence they've possessed from the get-go that's always made them such an exciting group. Tonight vocalist Shaun Hencher asks the aged crowd what it's like to see their first gig in twenty years, Henry Withers plays the guitar behind his head before embarking on a derailing, Malkmus-esque guitar line whilst the rhythm section looks on, singularly unimpressed and powered only by a desire to get the songs from A to B with the minimum of fuss. You still wouldn't call Lovvers polished, but they've certainly rubbed up well.

The Paul Green School of Rock (literally a rock school from the USA) set rather more mundane standards - efficiency and proficiency are the order of the day here as they work their way through a set of rock standards (‘Immigrant Song’, ‘Holy Diver’) and a strange Satriani/Vai/Malmsteen-esque triple guitar version of ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’.

It's all a little cold - like the kind of gig you get from sixth-formers doing a BTEC. Being well-schooled, they all stand where they're supposed to stand, play what they're supposed to play and put in the wanky guitar solos where they're supposed to put in the wanky guitar solos, but their finest moment comes when the bassist in the Municipal Waste t-shirt hits the guitarist in the Sufjan Stevens t-shirt on the head with the head of his bass and the two exchange pissed-off glances for the rest of the song. Other than that, it's all a little too studious, a little too reverent.

The last thing the Butthole Surfers are going to be is studious. With their full ‘80s line-up reunited for this tour they kick off their set in reassuringly shambolic fashion with an opener that has to be restarted. At least they're backed up by the School of Rock kids, which provides them with a solid base over which to add their sonic chaos. And adding sonic chaos is something they're pretty adept at. Their set is a glorious, sprawling, psychedelic mess - and I'm prepared to run the risk of sounding like the sort of person who watches Dave Gilmour solo concerts by saying that the light show, complete with projected cartoons, adds another layer of sickly, psychedelic brilliance. There's a similar sense of fun, piss-taking and rock-history reverence that you get from a Flaming Lips show, but where the Oklahomans are now Paul Smith-suited, festival headlining megastars their one-time contemporaries are still as goon faced and utterly deranged as ever. You don't get Wayne Coyne calling the audience "fucking pussies".

‘Sweet Loaf’ is the crowning moment of the night - its refrain of "Satan, Satan, Satan" uniting the crowd in (un)holy rock harmony. The four School of Rockers who've joined for the song are having the time of their lives and join the Surfers in executing synchronized kicks every time the riff climaxes. It's a beautiful moment - totally stupid and totally genius.

In this context it's tempting to cast the Butthole Surfers as devious uncles, each member the sort of relative who comes over for dinner once in a while, gets pissed and horrifies your mum and dad by being all like: "Yeah, fuck school! You learn fuck all there! I do my learning in life!" Now I'm sure Paul Green does a great job with the kids at his school, but the Surfers provide the School of Rockers - and all in the audience - with a lesson in just how great the real, wondrous, bonkers world of rock can be.