Allusondrugs, Fizzy Blood: The Magnet, Liverpool

Allusondrugs

With the rain pouring outside, Getintothis’ Jamie Otsa takes refuge inside The Magnet and finds a band, in Allusondrugs, on the cusp of something potentially rather spectacular.

With just a two band bill and a muggy, torrential wash-out of a day throughout the North West, tonight threatens to be another famous “Liverpool walk-up”. Thankfully, by the time Fizzy Blood hit the stage there are some bodies in the room.

On this, the last date of tour with their friends and fellow Leeds compatriots Allusondrugs, they waste no time, demonstrating immediately that they’re not here to mess about. With a few friends in the crowd and some enthusiastic early fans, live favourites like I’m No Good taken from their debut EP Feast sound just as thrilling here as on record, with flawless three part harmonies underpinning their swaggering retro-rock with a hint of lysergic desert blues; impressive stuff from a band so early along their path.

Check out our review and gallery from this year’s washed out Download Festival

Allusondrugs do, it has to be said, steal the show tonight, succeeding where most bands fail in igniting a powder-keg of flat energy in a half empty room, which results in the sort of chaotic scenes you might expect at a Pagan sacrifice rather than a Friday night gig in The Magnet. Bodies are flailing, young women are swirling around in wide brim hats and one man throws himself to the floor and writhes around in ecstasy like a possessed wretch, all the while accompanied by the Lou Reed and T-Rex referencing strains of new material from the quintet, which hints at a more mature change of direction exploring elements of psychedelia, drone and shoegaze.

Front man Jason Moules is part Iggy Pop, part Perry Farrell, part Grayson Perry – androgynous, sexual and charming, he’s a magnetic personality who lends the band a shot of magic, the kind of man who could very quickly come to be a voice currently lacking for a generation of bewildered youngsters. Those lucky few here tonight might just have witnessed the start of something very special indeed.

As the band would say: “Love is free. Love is beautiful. Love is wild. Love is falling apart and picking yourself back up” – which is exactly what Allusondrugs manage to do tonight, quite spectacularly.