By Jonny Bakes
I made my way up to Carlisle for my first ever visit to The Brickyard to catch a band that I’ve been waiting for the best part of a decade to see – Nanowar of Steel on their first extended visit to this country. Accompanying Tragedy on a ÜK-wide tour, the bands hit Hull (former city of culture) the previous night before heading to the opposite side of the country where I met up with them for a Friday night of silliness and metal; frankly I couldn’t wait!
The Brickyard itself is a great independent venue in a 100-year old converted church hall that is full of character and attracts an increasingly long list of fantastic bands. The main room is an intimate 320 capacity room that is perfect for everyone to experience the ridiculousness that was about to befall upon the unsuspecting citizens of Carlisle. Some of those who made it to the gig seemed to think they’re here to see a standard BeeGees tribute band but they couldn’t be further from the truth. I think as soon as Nanowar of Steel hit the stage they realized that this was not going to be your average night of ’70s disco…
Adorned in a variety of different costumes including a pink tutu (Mr Baffo), an orange wig (Gatto Panceri 666), headwear fashioned from balloons and some serious plunging necklines, Nanowar of Steel made one hell of an entrance. They wasted no time in diving into the music with latest single ‘Sober’ opening their set with this swashbuckling alcohol free anthem which instantly rouses the crowd. The next minute though, I looked up to see that vocalist Potowotominimak had reappeared with a giant inflatable phone and slipped into something more comfortable – a Cthulhu mask. This could only mean one thing and that was ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ which was absolutely spot but I found I couldn’t tear my gaze from this gyrating Cthulu who looked like an extra from Trigger Happy TV but, better yet, his lines were almost identical to the album release (to which you’ll need to listen in order to understand, but let’s just say it sounds like a very tentatacley motorboating…).
The momentum on coming with the very serious Sabaton-esque anthem about a famous Italian battle in the late 20th Century… The 1994 World Cup final saw the Italians fall to the Brazilians in ‘Pasadena 1994’ which got the whole crowd bouncing along. This was followed by yet another costume change which saw a giant owl take the stage as the crowd were taught Italian to summon the mighty bird to fly them out of Carlisle and back to Italy, for which I can’t blame them, after all Carlisle is a very silly place (or was that Camelot? I always get those mixed up!). It was certainly some spectacle seeing a room full of people chanting “Barbagianni” and flapping their arms as they joined in with ‘Il Cacciatore della Notte’
We’ve all seen many a Wall of Death at gigs, hell I know I’ve been in a few of them, but Nanowar of Steel have their own take on it – the “Wall of Love”. You probably already get the idea, but imagine the crowd charging together only to hug and dance together to a cover of George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ and you would be pretty spot on. Naturally, the band needed to demonstrate before they let the crowd loose which resulted in some pretty sensual dancing between Mr Baffo and Potowotominimak to set the high standard which I’d like to say that we met!
The back end of the set featured just as many absolute ‘bangers as the first, with ‘…And Then I Noticed She Was A Gargoyle’ and ‘Uranus’ both sounding as great as they did live, but for me the persona highlight was watching the whole crowd go wild for ‘Norwegian Reggaeton’ which was infinitely better up close and personal (unlike my from-the-distance view of it being played at Bloodstock). The whole crowd danced their little metal hearts out and it was fucking glorious! The set ended with ‘Vallhallelujah’ and saw the whole crowd sing their worship to IKEA whilst a Lack coffee table was built to be paraded through the crowd. I never thought I’d see a crowd of metalheads go wild for a completed table but that’s exactly what happened tonight, it was a religious experience!
Nanowar of Steel certainly set a high bar with their incredible performance for Tragedy to try and beat when they took to the stage. There was certainly strutting galore as Tragedy brought the ’80s sleaze vibes with them, it looks like touring with Steel Panther really rubbed off on them! Speaking of rubbing off… Tragedy were, of course, accompanied by chief dancer and potential fluffer, Lance, who spent the entirety of the set garishly dancing and generally making a nuisance of himself, but that is a pretty integral part of the Tragedy show!
The band blistered through infectiously catchy covers of pretty much every disco song that you know at the core of your being, like ‘Fame’ and ‘Funky Town’ which please the more mature members of the crowd. Shortly after this we were treated to a Grease medley of ‘Grease’ and ‘Summer Nights’ (but not ‘You’re the One that I Want’ just yet) which had the whole crowd trying to nail the final notes of the latter with, let’s just say, varying levels of success. But, hell, it was still pretty impressive!
We also bore witness to one of the tracks from latest album ‘I Am Woman’ making an appearance in Tragedy’s live show, with a song about masturbation from Cyndi Lauper – ‘She Bop’. This saw Lance continue to try and be the centre of attention with a bubble show, but maybe it would have been more appropriate if he had a water pistol… But he did get his wish and became the centre of attention as he returned dressed in a cape and face covered in corpse paint to be “King Neil Diamond ” for the deeply serious Tragedy spin on every football fan’s favourite ‘Sweet Caroline’.
In the following moments, we were treated to back to back ABBA covers with ‘Dancing Queen’ and ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’ both making an appearance much to the delight of the crowd before we finally got the third song from the Grease trilogy – ‘You’re The One That I Want’. A bit of an interruption followed this as the crowd realized that a new face on the stage, as a female fan took over the mic to only go and propose to her man in the middle of the gig… to which he said yes (no pressure there mate)!
The back end of the set took Tragedy back to their roots with a string of Bee Gees covers like ‘You Should Be Dancing’ and ‘Staying Alive’. Lance couldn’t stay in the background for too long as a break in the music gave him the opportunity to take centre stage and thrash out the entire Van Halen ‘Eruption’ solo on his little Flying V Ukulele which would be impressive enough, but he also ended up with less strings than he started with! It was almost too good to be true… but let’s not ruin the magic. There were more Steel Panther vibes as all the evil women were invited to the stage (which being Carlisle meant that pretty much every woman ended up on that stage!) to sing and dance along to the roaring rendition of ‘Y.M.C.A’ to close out what was a pretty fantastic set.
Considering how long I’d waited to see Nanowar of Steel, I can safely say that it was worth the wait! And with Tragedy to bring them along it made for the perfect night of sheer adolescent humour and ridiculous metal. With a tour that spans a whole host of lesser visited locations you have literally no excuse to go out and spaff some money at one of these shows, and that is exactly what you should do as it will be one of the best nights of the year.
My sides are going to hurt for the next few weeks from the amount of laughing I did, but I don’t care as it was 100 per cent worth it!
- Photos by Mrs Fen Morrish.
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