Apologies: this one has been moved from shelf to shelf so many times I’d forgotten it existed. My house is an utter mess, plus, after feeling unaccountably depressed after having seen ‘Goodnight Cleveland’ I don’t think I’ve watched a music movie since, barring maybe ‘Oil City Confidential’ and a Dolly Parton documentary on BBC4. No excuse, I know.
Anyway. Running For Cover were fucking great, weren’t they? A burning, negative worldview band channelling the unholy might of Rorschach, Crossed Out and Man Is The Bastard. On this DVD are two sets. The first is a short, sharp outing filmed by one guy at Sit And Spin. It’s up close n’ personal, and frontman Patrick Bolger looks like he’s painfully transforming into an eel while the band tear through their putrid, mutant hardcore and the Iron Lung guys lurk in the background. The second gig is about three times as long and has three times as many cameras filming it. The band tears sourly through their set taking no prisoners, and when Patrick – bizarrely wearing what could be a pair of ladies’ undergarments made out of bubblewrap – says “I hope everyone in this fucking room dies real fucking soon” you believe him. And yet the crowd goes wild, the silly sods.
The sound is crisp and better than it has any right to be on a DIY DVD throughout, capturing the band’s mania and the sheer (improvised?) genius of bassist David Bailey, whose elongated, prog-damaged, multi-layered intermissions are worth the price of entry alone. It’s heavy stuff – musically, mentally, thematically, etc. – and a welcome insight into one of the most interesting, inventive hardcore bands of the 00s.