Beasts Of Bourbon

It’s 10 years since the enigmatic, lawless gang of freaks that is the Beasts last played Meredith. A hot summer’s Saturday late afternoon in 2003 they were thumping out a wired, dangerous vibe; more than just the sky was on the edge of darkness. The big crowd swayed and nodded and vented to every incendiary note, they were ON, things were going OFF, like firecrackers! ‘Chase The Dragon’. ‘Black Milk’, ‘Dropout’, ‘Psycho’, ‘Let’s Get Funky’, ‘Can’t Say No’, ‘Just Right’…until finally that unregulated force just blew right out, and everything ended… abruptly. It was a rude crude finish, but nobody left disappointed, cos it was one of the best things you’d ever see. A live Beasts show is a rarity, a special occasion, worth waiting for, it feels like an all-star underworld Rock n Roll Bad-State-of-Mind-Origin… or something. When they’re going, it’s as though rock energy exists purely to feed their animal. The Beasts chew it up and spit it out, great gobfulls of punk and swamp and blues spraying out everywhere too. Henry Rollins has talked about watching the Beasts from side of stage with members of Nirvana, BDO 91, when Nirvana were the biggest thing in the world, and said they “handed Nirvana their heads.” Tex: “An hour set you have to pace yourself somewhere, but with a forty five you can just cane it.” 45 it is then. The same lineup as ten years ago will do it again, Saturday evening. Lightning strikes twice.