Rock’s most unlikely gods try out their new stuff to the rabid faithful
The first song tonight, “X Ray Visions”, is one of those “wow” moments that gigs throw up. Clutch have been on stage for all of 15 seconds, and Neil Fallon is about to deliver its opening line, but Rock City collectively wants to sing it too. And they do. In fact, all evening from the explanation that “the first thing that I did was buy a pack of smokes” to the last last line, some 85 minutes later about “shaking hands in necro city” there are people both hanging on, and joining in with, every single word.
MV would wager that if you asked the band, even they would admit it was never supposed to be like this. On a cold, miserable night in the East Midlands, not only is Rock City full to bursting point, the four men from Maryland are thousands of miles from home and treated like heroes.
Equally, if you asked them if they’d expected such rock star treatment when they formed 20 odd years ago with the same line up, then these most remarkable unremarkable men on the planet would probably be honest enough to say no.
The answer as to why it happened – possibly at any rate – lies in the lyrics to one of the songs they play tonight. No one writes songs like Neil Fallon from Clutch, no one mixes the profound with the baffling quite so well so the man who on the bands last record told us that he didn’t need validation, and then explained that there are “1000 Les Pauls burning in a field” has this time around been troubled “by the angry spirits of Ronald and Nancy Reagan” but rather more prosaically on “Noble Savage” that he’s an “unapologetic lifer for rock n roll”.
And you kind of have to bear in mind where they’ve come from, forming at the height of grunge. They’ve never tried fitting in. Rather, they’ve done exactly what they chose to do for the intervening two decades, until now, when to look at the reaction they get you’d guess they were about to conquer the planet at any moment.
The brilliant thing about them is they’ve never really changed. Actually no, they have, they’ve just got better and better. If the previous “Earth Rocker” record was a classic, then it’s arguable that the “Psychic Warfare” opus that emerged about seven weeks ago is, even for Clutch, a career high.
There seems to be a good chance that they agree with this too. They play all of it during the show here. The quartet are an outfit that changes the set every night, and it just so happens that this evening they decide to air it all. Not, you understand, in some formulaic order – they don’t do formulas – just randomly, as they toss them into the ether.
They sound magnificent too. “Firebirds” is barmy brilliance, “Our Lady Of Electric Light” is bluesy and a the chance for a breather, and the closing “Son Of Virginia” comes alive.
Given the weighting to new material there’s nothing much from their mid period, but there’s a couple from 1998’s “The Elephant Riders” and both “The Soapmakers” as well as it’s title track are furious about something.
The encore sees “Earth Rocker” and a stunning “DC Sound Attack” – Fallon walloping his cowbell and tooting his harmonica for all he’s worth.
The gods of rock aren’t supposed to be four fellas who could blend into their own crowd with no problem at all. No one told Clutch. And given the sheer breadth of tshirts here tonight – MV spots everything from Def Leppard to death metal – Clutch have crossed over.
And right here, tonight, their visions were incredible.
