Review- The Grit

A review for www.headscaffold.com of band The Grit, in Sunderland, October, 2006:

The night didn’t bode well for The Grit as I waited through two hours of shamefully dull attempts to warm up the crowd for the main event. I was so downcast from The Slagrat’s opening that I didn’t even bother to catch the second band’s name.

Luckily, the first two bands were the calm before the storm as The Grit did it all on their own. The subdued audience was thrown right into a blend of Sex Pistols, The Clash and good old Geordie attitude.

Maybe the biggest and best contrast was ‘Little Man Kurt’ on the double bass. Only two hours earlier I had been whinging to my friend about how crap the big bald bloke was on the same instrument, and so the energy put into this latest exhibition was all the more impressive. In short, Kurt put the Slagrat’s double bassist to shame.

One of the best things about The Grit’s songwriting was they knew exactly when to break it down, and then to take the audience back up again. Every song had a good turn to the slow side, reminding me slightly of the way Rage Against the Machine did it (although obviously in a different genre). With ‘Came Out of the Womb/Angry Cunt’ The Grit had the audience guessing and then anticipating the return of the exasperating head-banging punk tunes they had already been treated to, and not before or after time did the guitars and drums kick back in.

The above song was probably the best of the night, but the doubtless writing skills of the band also managed some great tunes including ‘Fear and Consumption’, ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ and ‘Surrender’ to name but three.

As the final note of ‘Whoever You Are’ blazed out, the crowd were left feeling content that they had sat through the aforementioned shit before the good stuff came on. It left me feeling that maybe the punk scene does have hope in the UK after all.