Live Review: Eight Rounds Rapid / Black Bombers / Boilermaker / The Relitics / The Continental Quilts – Westgarth Social Club, Middlesbrough, UK, 7th April 2019

It’s been twenty five years since Lee Brilleaux, frontman of arguably Britain’s finest R&B band Dr. Feelgood, died. Tonight is a Lee Brilleaux tribute evening organised and promoted by Big Figure Promotions & Down By The Jetty Promotions, one of a number of Teesside promoters who, over the years have made sure that, should you wish you to, you could go to a local gig almost every night of the week. As Tonight offered five bands, Eight Rounds Rapid, Black Bombers, Boilermaker, The Relitics and The Continental Quilts, for an advance ticket price of just a tenner what’s not to love? especially when each of those bands delivers quality tunes. Tyneside’s The Continental Quilts open the evening and blast through a set of good time blues tinged punk rock ‘n’ roll.

It can’t be easy being the opening act of a long night of music but The Continental Quilts do it superbly with songs such as Can’t Kill and C’mon (Get Back To) Getting It On immediately hooking you in with their blend of catchy, guitar driven raw rock ‘n roll. This is a band that can’t stand still with vocalist Stephanie Pelmet, guitarist Brian Atkinson and bass player Jonathan Wells-Lee caught up in their own beat. Even drummer Richard Millington leaves his stool at one point to join in with a brief but manic jig at the front. The single Motor Sicko Fever fits right in with tonight’s theme as this is real dirty rockin’ blues. Although clearly well known by a number of the crowd tonight The Continental Quilts are new to me but this won’t be the last time I see them.

Durham’s The Relitics continue the assault bringing 70’s punk roots and power pop, this is delivered with a rock ‘n roll sensibility and a strong anti-fascist message. Stalwarts of the DIY scene and independent venues The Relitics knock out hard hitting songs that rally against the frustrations of todays living. With songs like To Hell With Austerity, Your War, Rich Man’s War and Anti Fascist it’s not hard to know where they stand, The Relitics have a knack of stopping short of hardcore meaning well structured, snappy songs that Mick Hall snarls and spits out counterbalanced with the melodic, but no less furious, vocals of Carol Nichol as she writhes across the stage holding you with stares that state quite clearly she means business. Full of venom and anger this is a relentless forty minute set that sees no moment of calm until the final note of Struggle dies out. 

Boilermaker bring a welcome dose of street punk. Slashing guitar work, pounding drums, singalong lyrics combine to form songs straight out of the early 80’s punk bible but with an attitude bringing things bang up to date. Proud of their roots with a strong anti-Tory message, Boilermaker get better every time I see them. Their appearance precedes Birmingham’s Black Bombers who leave us in no doubt where their DNA comes from, mix up The Gun Club, The Damned, and Motorhead along with hard hitting blues tinged grungy rock n roll and you wouldn’t be far off Black Bombers. Tonight they almost take the roof off the Westgarth as they power through a blistering set of songs drawn from their self titled 2016 album and the freshly released six track 10”, Vol 4.

Opening with That Kind the Black Bombers deliver a relentless non-stop 45 minutes as they follow this with Break It Down, Day After Day, Relentless, the two singles, Rush and Crazy, Early Warning and more. Hard hitting, driving guitar licks and growling vocals underpinned with pounding drums and primal bass lines. This isn’t music for the faint hearted but if you like dark, loud, dirty rock ‘n roll that doesn’t let up for a single moment then Black Bombers are a band for you. This trio of Alan Byron (guitar and vocals), Darren Birch (bass) and Dave Twist (drums) hammer out such a captivating, menacing noise over an irresistible, pulsing, foot tapping, shake your body beat that it’s little wonder people find it hard to believe they’ve actually played for 45 minutes when their set finishes.

Eight Rounds Rapid treat us to a set that within seconds has people up at the stage dancing. This is a band that knows exactly what it’s doing as they bring the sound of Canvey Island straight into the Westgarth. Guitarist Simon Johnson has all those unmistakeable hallmark moves of his dad Wilko Johnson but Eight Rounds Rapid do not play on the family link. Johnson chops and stabs at his guitar producing some blistering riffs as he skuttles non-stop around the stage, within seconds he’s dripping with sweat but at no point does he slow down. David Alexander stands at his mike almost motionless from chest up yet seemingly possessed by some demon force from waist down. Legs, hips and feet shuffle and sway as he screeches out deadpan lyrics with a sharp eye for the details of life.

Splitting the set almost equally between 2014’s Lossleader album and their more recent album, 2017’s Objet D’Art, songs such as Bully Boy, Practical, String Theory and Dirty are full of grubby, jagged, staccato guitar over sweeping rhythms courtesy of Jules Cooper and Lee Watkins on bass and drums respectively. Things slow, but only a little, to a more traditional bluesy riffing on Dostoyevsky and My Mate but generally it’s all infectious punk rock rhythm and blues that unsurprisingly is very much like Dr. Feelgood as well as the likes of Eddie & The Hot Rods, The Inmates et al but with the energy levels and attitude upped a notch or ten. Add in a cover of The Other Half’s Mr. Pharmacist (as covered by The Fall) and it’s fair to say Eight Rounds Rapid were fantastic. 

Photography by Steve White. You can visit Steve White‘s Flickr site here and you can click on any of the photos to view a slide show of the images.

The Continental Quilts can be found on Facebook here and Bandcamp here.

The Relitics can be found on  Facebook here, Spotify here, and YouTube here

The Black Bombers can be found of Facebook here and Vol. 4 can be purchased here

Eight Rounds Rapid‘s website is here and their Facebook page is here