More about: Show me the body

Less than a fortnight after releasing their third studio album Trouble The Water (which I reviewed, too!), Show Me The Body played at Camden’s Underworld on 7 November. I did not go because Camden is deeply uncool. (Jk, I thought twice in one week would be overkill.) However, I did catch Show Me The Body at their secret set in Brixton Village – yes, the indoor market – two days later. The shutters were closed at one of the entrances, and the band played facing away from the shutters so the crowd watched from the other side, turning the space into a makeshift venue.

It was cool, but also impractical, which might be a good way of describing Show Me The Body overall. I couldn’t really see any of the band because the space isn’t designed for live music, and the sound wasn’t great because, again, the space isn’t designed for live music. Knowing that Show Me The Body had played only two days previous in a venue with acoustics, sight lines, and all those other things that make (most) live music venues good for live music dampened the experience. 

There have been many great shows in places not intended for live music, but they are usually great because they’ve been somehow marginalised – the marvel is the vindication of the underdog in spite of restrictions, or the success of the suppressed to organically organise in great numbers. For an example of the former, Bristol’s Howling Owl were banned from all venues, so many of their early gigs were in unconventional spaces; for an example of the latter, take the huge numbers that turned out for the filming of Skepta’s video for ‘Shutdown’ at the Barbican estate. At the time of the shoot, promoters were still required to send form 696 to the Met Police, which asked for the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all performers, as well as the genre of music being played and the ethnicity of those who would likely attend. It was used to target and monitor performers and audiences of colour.

Although the show was ideologically a bit weird, there is a primal joy in the novelty of a show in an unconventional setting – and primal joy is what they strove for. Show Me The Body leant into the reliable timbres of hardcore to bring the energy and the moshpits, making for a good set. The band were gritty and exciting, and this translated to the crowd: the further in you were, the sweatier and more hyped you became. In a way, the poor visibility of the show encouraged the attendees to get into and add to the ruckus instead of standing with folded arms at the back.

It was a bit of a shame not to hear some of the more experimental sounds from Trouble The Water, but it was the right call to stick to the bread and butter: those songs would have been better executed in a proper venue. I hadn’t been to a hardcore show in a couple of years, and although I am slightly critical of their use of Brixton Village, it was ultimately a cool show in a cool spot. It was also free – anyone who might not have been able to afford a ticket to the Underworld could go. Even if a little bit of it is dribbling down their chins, their money is mostly where their mouths are.

Grab your copy of the Gigwise print magazine here.

More about: Show me the body