The Parkinsons

Close your eyes and you could be listening to the first Clash album. Open them and four scrawny sweat-drenched Portuguese are getting shirtless, displaying the wan chest hair and scrawny torsos as befits the bearers of the punk rock’n’roll torch.

The Parkinsons have not an ounce of originality or invention. The winkle-pickers. The scissor kicks. The Chuck Taylors. The “1-2-3-4’s”. The tight pants and sweaty hair. The guitars trashier than a hammer smacking iron. The drummer beating his cymbal on every fucking beat. The songs which sound like ‘Clash City Rockers’ over and over again. It’s all been done before and done to death.

But let me put this in some sort of context for you. Two things made the Parkinsons not shit, but frankly adorable. Firstly, we just sat through three jaw-droppingly mediocre bands either still kicking around from, or inexplicably trying to revive, the ‘97/’98 arse end of Britpop. All of whom played for a least 45 minutes. That’s over two hours of Charlatans** and Menswear B-sides. The Parkinsons may be dumb, but at least they’re not musicians.

Secondly, while they might well have reigned in some of their wilder tendencies for this gig (having lost their 'naturistically-inclined' band member), it’s clear that the Parkinsons fucking love punk rock. I don’t want to sound like a fascist, but fuck it: You can tell which bands bought leather jackets from Top Man and are gonna be playing country or polka or whatever The Next Big Thing is in two months. And you can tell which are adrenaline junkies who live for sick and visceral kicks. Even a pussy-ass Notting Hill crowd appreciates this, stirring up, if not quite into pogoing madness, then into fine hip-shaking posturing.

Parkinsons, we loved you for your passion, energy and sheer young-dumb-and-full-of-cum swagger. Now go and write some bloody songs.