'Bristol, Fuck You and This One Horse Town', Black Spiders are in the house and they are pissed off. Well, so would you be if due to stupid gig start times (6:30 !!!) and road closures around the venue it meant that you were playing to only around two hundred people maximum (God only knows how many people No Americana played to....sorry guys we missed you). 

Luckily the above rant is also the lyric to the band's thunderous track 'Stay Down', so those in attendance are quite happy to nod their heads in approval. Sounding not unlike the bastard sons of Kyuss, Goatsnake and QOTSA before they got their trust fund, Black Spiders have the riffs to slay audiences a hundred times this size and when this juggernaut of a band rolls into your town you better understand that ain't no earthquake baby, it's just the bass riff to 'St Peter' passing through. Scary stuff.

Cometh the hour, cometh the band and at around 8pm, the Kerrang! approved Wildhearts strode onto the O2 Academy's stage like all conquering heroes. Second night of the tour and everything was already in all the right places, with a mighty set of new and old that spanned a grand total of one hour and fifty minutes. The 'new' set got underway with 'The Jackson Whites' easing its way out into the, by now near to, capacity crowd as the band proceeded to play the rather spiffing 'Chutzpah!' album in sequence and in its entirety, something both bold, and adventurous, but when the songs are this good who really cares?  A heartfelt 'Tim Smith' and 'Low Energy Vortex' mid set really highlighted the strengths of this line up, with some solid riffing and sublime three part harmonies on the latter track from Ginger, C.J and Scott. As this 'Chutzpah!' part of the set rolled on, the audience had started to warm up, and this was something the refreshingly sober (and rather oddly Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now! looking) Ginger picked up on immediately. Swiftly dedicating the album's final/title track to the people who will line up a drink of every shot at the bar ready for the encore, the encore being the Wildhearts fan chosen 'old' set of the night.

After the short drinks break it was headlong into a truly brutal version of  'Nothing Ever Changes But The Shoes' and Ginger was necking some roadie concocted brew apparently only drunk by Spanish hobos. It was certainly party time as hit after motherfucking hit followed, (try 'Sick Of Drugs',  'Red Light, Green Light' and 'Vanilla Radio' for starters) all causing mass hysteria. As always rising to the occasion and looking ever so slightly 'tipsy', Ginger introduced 'One Love, One Life, One Girl' almost apologetically, before it was heads down to the end in the shape of 'My Baby Is A Headfuck', which in itself is a bona fide four minute lesson in rock n roll perfection, that had all of the band grinning like loons, and the crowd dancing like their lives depended on it.

The Wildhearts really are a band at the top of their game right now, and I would urge anyone having second thoughts about attending one of these 'Chutzpah!' shows to just get off their fucking arses and go. 

Rock N Roll shows really don't get much better than this.