Rock’n’roll should always teeter on a knife’s edge, not sprawl flaccidly on the fence. So when the promoter whispers to [I]NME[/I], minutes before hometown boys Confucius Saint rip onstage, that the band are “totally off their tits tonight, they’ll either be really brilliant or really shit,” it sounds more like a promise than an apology.
It’s by no means a smooth show. Three songs in, the lead guitarist has skulked into the audience, his amp having failed on him. During the final ‘Moment Too Soon’, the rhythm guitarist effortlessly shatters his guitar into splintering timber, reducing what was originally a quintet to a trio for their closing moments. Disaster, huh?
Not by a long shot. For 30 minutes, Confucius Saint are a rush, a blur of rattling blood-red riffs, whip-crack rhythms and torn harmonies. Imagine ‘Repeater’-era Fugazi with radio-friendly choruses riding roughshod over the vein-bulging hardcore, and a heady, urgent dash of last-gasp lust pervading the proceedings. Leaping, screaming, racing each other to the end of every song, Confucius Saint sound like they’re racing time itself, trying to grab hold of some fleeting moment and preserve it forever in feedback din.
And it’s all over, faster than a flashbulb flicker. White noise rings about the room, kids scurry from the pit cradling shards of guitar, the singer clambers from the stage, exhausted. All or nothing. Perfect.