Cabbage – Live @ Norwich Arts Centre
aaamusic | On 18, Apr 2018
Friday 13th April, Norwich
Cabbage – the band from Mossley, just east of Manchester – describe themselves as ‘Apocalyptic Sprautrock’! Well, what could that mean? This new band have certainly been making waves with the media in the past year or so and look set to rise to bigger venues in the future. As always, Norwich Arts Centre is a special place to see up and coming artists, and judging by the packed out young crowd, this is indeed true.
Starting with fellow Mossley band Afghan Sand Gang, the sound is more of Pysch Krautrock as they deliver an enduring and confident set in front of a handful of people (due to an unadvertised early start – must’ve drawn the short straw or lost out online betting), but as they finish this number swells to well into double figures. Next up are She Drew The Gun from the Wirral, fronted by singer-songwriter Louisa Roach. They offer dreamy, lyrically political psych-pop from their album produced by The Coral’s James Skelly.
On to Cabbage now and by this time the room is packed, with much of the front area occupied by a younger and more energetic crowd. For most of their set this part of the crowd is busy moshing and being incredibly lively for the Arts Centre, which is unusual but refreshing to see! The band can be described more as grungy indie rock and guitars are definitely at the forefront of their sound, whilst singer Lee Broadbent begins spitting angry, politically cathartic words out to the audience with song titles such as ‘Postmodernist Caligula’ and ‘Obligatory Castration’. Broadbent swaps frontman singing duties with guitarist Joe Martin on equal occasions and both have swagger and attitude, not unlike that of The Libertines or even the Sex Pistols. The band finishes with ‘Necroflat In the Palace’, with the classic lyric line, “I was born in the NHS, I wanna die in the NHS”, and after an hour and a quarter of mayhem no encore is necessary as the message has been delivered, full stop.
In conclusion, the older among the crowd can only stand at the edges and nod approvingly, as the kids fight their way to the front of the barrier to mosh and be with their friends, and also to be part of something larger than themselves. Cabbage are just what the Doctor ordered right now and as Sham 69 said, “The Kids are United”… Theresa May better watch out.
