The usually well-behaved crowd at the Hammer Museum is not used to this kind of things! Moshing and crowd surfing in this impeccable place? The security guards were a little overwhelmed, some of them were pointing their flashlights to the trouble-makers, but the crowd kept going till the end of the Soft Pack’s performance during the ‘Also I like to Rock’ series at the Museum.
Young people were really into it from start, but they really became crazy after a couple of songs, and beside a slow down with the tender ‘Mexico’, it was a wild ride till the end.
The San Diego quartet, with their unassuming clean-cut-college-kid-look, started to play some of their fast and fun tunes with their joyous chorus, although a little disjointed, like ‘Bright Side’ or ‘Beside Myself’, filled with plenty of guitar assaults, turning the songs into a sort of guitar jihad, if I dare to say,… well, they were calling themselves The Muslims before adopting their current moniker.
Their songs are these speedy-delivered little bombs with layered guitars which seem to race with themselves, fast punk anthems or caffeinated cascades of sounds with in-your-face vocals and long distorted guitar solos. Some of the tunes started almost like a post-punk tune and ended up in some trance-like hypnotic dance-floor number (The Velvet Underground anyone?), like ‘Parasites’, during which Matt Lamkin had even let his guitar down and was singing with confidence in a monochord and morose tone. The crowd began its nervous behavior at that time, like a bomb ready to explode, I felt the first people pushing, and I started to enjoy the show even more.
None of the four guys was really talkative, Matty McLoughlin, who was playing guitar, said a few words to the crowd while smiling, and Matt Lamkin announced a few songs, always very seriously, saying at one point ‘it’s a Stones cover’, before starting ‘Hang Fire’.
With their don't-give-a-fuck attitude, they were tight and frenetic without exhibiting any nervousness, only a real punk energy contrasting with their obvious pop sensibility, which won them a few comparisons with The Strokes. Yeah, some may say they are wearing their influences on their sleeves, but any band that can start such a moshpit at the Hammer Museum deserves attention.
Setlist (as read from the handwritten list)
Bright side
?
Beside myself
Parasites
Captain ace
Extinctions
Hang fire (cover)
Mexico
Right and wrong
Pull Out
Oxford avenue
More or Less
C’mon
Answer to yourself
Something by the Moody Blues