The Creepshow, The Asylum, Birmingham

Last night me and my very own 3 foot Elvis, my good lady wife went to see Psychobilly band The Creepshow. They were playing at The Asylum, a new venue to us in Birmingham. If you have stumbled on this entry and just want to know about the venue, its quite nice, pretty good parking, its new but the main room is quite cavernous, much too big a main room for the bands that play there.
So what of the bands? The first support was a local roackabilly band called, according to the posters, Lunavegas. I have to say this all male 4 piece were excellent, they had enough of a punk edge to keep my wife happy and enough rockabilly to keep me happy, with stand up bass in tow and very strong songs they were damned enjoyable and their enthusiasm was pretty infectious, but as swine flu also is I wouldn’t take that with too much weight. They have the obligatory myspace over at http://www.myspace.com/lunavegas and you should really give them a listen, I thought they were excellent.
Following them was the female fronted Dragster, we were both familiar with them thanks to Youtube and I think they bill themselves as psychobilly, but really they were a punk band, and a poor punk band at that. I have to say I found them to be not so good, the singer just seemed dated, throwing eighties rock shapes that was a little embarrassing, not even in an ironic way, the songs weren’t strong either, they were an interruption and nothing more.
Finally The Creepshow were next, The Creepshow are a Canadian 4 piece, female guitarist/vocalist, stand up bass, keyboard and potentially the best drummer I have seen in a long time. They have released 2 albums and both are extremely strong, they do psychobilly on the pop side of things in a similar vein to The Horrorpops, for me though The Creepshow do it better.
The raced through a lot of the tracks from both albums, Shake, Psycho Ball and Chain, Rue Morgue Radio, Dog House and also a cover of The Ramones track Pet Semetary, before finishing with a misfits cover and The Garden, the later was performed without bass and drums and quite effective it was.
It has to be said they struggled at times with the room being so huge and the crowd being not as enthusiastic as they should be however as gigs go, for us at least, it’s a highlight of the year, very very enjoyable.



Doghouse by The Creepshow