Beasts Of Bourbon / Six Ft Hick / Gut

Andy J Ryan Mar 26, 2023

Beasts of Bourbon - Gaelic Theatre, 08 March 2007

Swaggering forth from the brink - overcoming broken backs and breaking stones in the big house - the Beasts prowled into town with their latest album.†

Gut kicked things off and were the first of many sweaty shirtless men on stage. Theirs is a particularly apt name, as they play large portions of big chunky rock.

People talk of things they wouldn't want to encounter in a dark alley; I wouldn't want to encounter Six ft Hick in even the most brightly lit, well-populated public place at midday, unless they were brandishing their instruments, that is. For theirs wasn't a set as such, more an indistinguishable pulverising barrage of screams, sweat, spit and blood flowing over a fierce, raw pulsing din. 'Gentle' Ben, one half of the destructive sibling singing assault, sported a welted and slashed eye (self-inflicted in the second song) that would've stopped a boxer.

The Beasts of Bourbon surfaced after the carnage of Six ft Hick and sank the crowd even further into dirty sweaty delirium. Tex Perkins, an ever-imposing figure, announced we were to be slipped some new songs and slapped with some classics tonight. Classics indeed: not the sort that you merrily sing along with on the radio, mind you, but classics in the raw primal way that they can unify a whole room to scream along and surge to the stage fists aloft.
Their new material was delivered in typically gritty fashion. One song concerning the saving of the little animals made me wonder if the band had perhaps found a sensitive side, but no, Tex implored at the end: "Save the animals, because they taste really great when you eat them". There was genuine sensitivity in the dedication of the new album to the late Ian Rilen who was honoured with a searing cover of his song 'Saturated'.

Allegedly the band's regular drummer Tony Pola was absent as he was back in jail, and bassist Brian Hooper is recovering heroically from a broken back - he was supposedly never to walk again - but the Beasts 'ride on' after more than 20 years and almost as many line-up changes. An assault on the unsuspecting US awaits. But for tonight, thanks for the whisky, thanks for the wine, thanks for the beer - and the good times.