The Supersuckers, The Hip Priests, The Suicide Notes and The Blue Carpet Band, Brighton, 2022

I was beyond excited after the Pandemic to look forward to a whole day of rock n roll in Brighton, a holiday town, which made it feel like more of an exciting day out from London.
The Supersuckers are back and with a fully Rock n Roll set (not Country as they were in 2016). Eddie Spaghetti is the mainstay with new line up Marty Chandler on guitar and Christopher Von Streicher on drums. I would have seen them in London, but I wanted to go to the only date with two sets (afternoon and evening) and additional and different support bands.

Things kick off mid afternoon with The Hip Priests who are coming from the super fast and loud Motorhead school of guitars, while the image of the singer is more modern a la Ghost with skeleton blacked out eyes. He has all the moves with arms and legs aloft to make the most of the limited space on the stage to provide punk style vocals against a backdrop of blistering guitar solos. Older tracks such as ‘Zero Fucks Given’ ‘Stand For Nothing’ ‘Survival of The Shittest’ ‘Motherfucker Superior’ sat side by side with newer material ‘Tiger in My Tank’ ‘Shakin’ Ain’t Fakin’ ‘Inaction Rocks’ and ‘Best Revenge’. An energetic and memorable start!

The Afternoon session is completed with the first set from the Supersuckers and is full of tracks the band rarely play including ‘Coattail Rider’ ‘Doublewide’ and ‘I want the Drugs’. From the new old album (it was out 2 years ago, but they are only just touring it due to the Pandemic) there’s a favourite of mine ‘You Ain’t The Boss of Me’ and another older one I like appropriately called ‘I Like It All’. Eddie Spaghetti concentrates on engaging with the crowd verbally between songs with his easy friendly laid back manner in Cowboy hat and shades. Marty Chandler on guitar is full of energy constantly poking his guitar out to the crowd, pointing to his frets like he’s performing a magic trick and gets full marks for physical crowd engagement. He takes on vocals for the fast more country style Billie Joe Shaver cover ‘Fast Train To Georgia’ before Eddie takes over vocal duties again for the Willie Nelson Cover ‘Bloody Mary Morning’. Although it is not on the list they do fit in my absolute favourite Supersuckers song ‘Pretty Fucked Up’ before finishing with ‘Born With a Tail’. It’s an absolute adrenaline mainline of Rock n Roll and a frenetic crazy speeding train from first to last. For me it seems over in a second, always a sign of a good show!

The evening proceedings started off with The Suicide Notes who had planned to do a full electric show which was stymied when their drummer tested positive for covid. Rather than pull out due to illness (which The Electric Shakes in the afternoon had no choice but to do) they decided to go ahead with an acoustic set which they could easily do as about half their recorded output to date has been acoustic eps. It’s a short set of only five songs and they do seem a little nervous as to possible crowd reaction. They need not have worried the crowd is receptive to the pared back Tyla solo style and the seated format. In a set consisting mainly of their singles and the Stones cover ‘Dead Flowers’ dedicated to Darrel Bath (ex Dogs D’amour) who died recently, they get a warmer reception than they seemed to be expecting. They are typically self deprecating “We’re Gonna Fuck Off now and let some proper Rock n Rollers play while we go to the bar” but their show was a good contribution to the day, possibly even better as an acoustic set for some contrast with the other full electric performances.

The Penultimate band is The Blue Carpet Band and being a Rockerbilly band they are brand new to me. It is testament to their songs perhaps that even after just one hearing I can remember some of them pretty well. There’s a strong Elvis influence both in timbre and in the singers jet black quiff, but he throws himself around on and off the stage like Iggy Pop making an exciting almost alarming combination. He even gives lifestyle advice “If someone doesn’t have rock n roll in their record collection run out of their house and don’t fuck ‘em”. So it’s high energy 50s influenced rock n roll and another good choice as a support.

Finally the second Supersuckers set is upon us with the songs they play more often like ‘Rock n Roll Records Ain’t Selling This Year’ mixed with ones from the new album like ‘Time Ain’t Gonna Stop’. Playing ‘The Evil Powers of Rock n Roll’, the Michael Monroe cover ‘Dead Jail Rock n Roll’ from the new album and title track ‘Play that Rock N Roll’ they joke about the number of songs they have with Rock n Roll in the title, being the greatest Rock n Roll Band in the world and loving songs they made up in 1987 when they were stupid kids.
Luckily they play ‘Pretty Fucked Up’ again. I cannot get enough of that song and finish with The Cowboy Song. They get the crowd to all show the middle finger and totally maximise that ultimately this band is about having fun and forgetting how old you actually are even though poor Marty is the butt of a joke that he is 67 when I think Eddie added on quite a few years for comic effect given Marty’s reaction. But the band is about messing around like kids while delivering serious rock n roll, a mission they certainly managed tonight.

If I had to compare the two Supersuckers sets I’d say there may have even been slightly more energy in the Afternoon set, maybe due to it being a set they don’t usually play and it being earlier in the day. But from an audience point of view there was more crazy dancing and crowd reaction due to the second set being later in the day. Personally I loved both sets and two lots of Supersuckers was definitely not too much for me. Definitely glad I made the journey for the Brighton show and will look forward to seeing them again when they return.

Dawn Osborne