Sunday 25th March 07 - The Horrors Plus Kreeps Club NME At The Welly Hull (2/2) By Michelle Dee Photographs by Kate Langan www.katelanganphotography.co.uk

(1/2), (2/2),

It's easy to see from where the NME nightmares The Horrors took the bones of their sound. By taking noisy garage punk, swathes of eighties Goth and a touch of nineties death they have the ultimate recipe to scare the parents of the new generation. The hundreds of 14+ kids here tonight are testament to that. I remember when the kids found NIN and Cradle Of Filth and Danny Filth's fangs was the talk on every black painted lip.

Vampires and bloodletting parties, cloaks and coffins were the in words and motifs. Now it's Kiss styled eye make up, back combed hair, thickly sprayed and set; wild and wiry.

Their songs weren't all that memorable, high pitched guitar riffs, kick ass drums and snarled vocals. However the stage performance was a different story, and is likely to be replayed in many a young mind time and again across the county. The singer, Faris Rotter, burdened by a large glitter ball on his shoulder much like Hercules when he was tasked with carrying the earth in Greek mythology. In the flashing strobe light claw-like hands reach out and grasp the fetid air. The kids love it as do a few of the older ones in the darker recesses of the upstairs room. Crowd surfers, stage invasions followed by stage divers and a million mobile phones all pointing toward the stage.

(Precious files of digital delight ready to be passed round school Monday morning.)

Faris hangs off the rafter last week tested for durability by Donny Tourette (Towers Of London) Some guy attempts to climb on the gantry then up his leg only to fall seconds later into the seething teen mosh pit below. They're selling Satan to our kids, like so many before them have done, every decade and a new demon emerges in popular marketed music. More ungodly screams from both him and the crowd and the club is a churning swirling cauldron of death, dark clothing, hormones and The Horrors.

Finding another rafter stage left -far from the green gilled promoters- Faris looms large over the crowd. Glaring down his eyes meet hundreds of adolescent eyes starring back in feverish adoration. Then perched atop a speaker like a raven on a fresh corpse he is still; a dark brooding silhouette, foreboding and artful.

Keyboard loops and guitar frenzies play out back on stage. Effect laden samples repeat over and over siren like and droning on the now darkened stage. The Horrors slip away unseen from whence they came and still the sirens wail. It's been a twenty-five minute set (five more than Manchester the previous night). The kids come away glowing as the lights go on and the looped effect is finally brought to a stop. Yet another Club NME night in Hull is remarked to be a resounding success.

Questions remain over the decision to make it a 14's and over gig but the numbers were good, the atmosphere too. This time there was a bar on the same floor as the stage so you could get a drink if you wanted one (permitted wristband wearers only) as long as no alcohol was consumed in the main room. Some of those drinking had to remain behind a barrier at the back of the room during the bands, but with all things there are choices. Have a drink all the time, or drink in-between the bands I chose the latter and it worked. www.myspace.com/kreepsmusic www.myspace.com/thehorrors

Photographs courtesy and Copyright ©  Kate Langan 2007

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