– ISLINGTON MILL, SALFORD –
The Bummer camp crew should be proud of themselves for putting on two great events over the last week. The only problem being that they were nowhere near as well attended as they should be.
First off they put on Christeene, the dirge shock tranny act whose antics have been causing somewhat of a storm of late what with tales of on stage insertions and apparently rimming his dancers and even putting his dick in some random punters mouth at the Islington Mill event (I wasn’t there so don’t know if this is actually true). As they pushed the already late 1am show time back to 2am and being on the same night as the Die Antwoord show at The Ritz and the ever popular Bollox club night I wonder how many people actually went?
Anyway, on to the second instalment of Bummer Camp, this time with Ssion (pronounced Schun).
The support act comes from Tranarchy Soundsystem which seem to consist of three fat guys and a girl doing random songs, some awesome, some not so, One of the guys is familiar as the support act from the Mykki Blanco show where he was called the Niallist and was really entertaining, as pretty much everyone thought he was some chance punter, but turned out to be a fair decent rapper, maybe they should leave it to him and the awesome bubbly goth girl as they could both actually sing.
So on to Ssion, having been into him for a couple of years now I’m really looking forward to seeing him live as the videos and his whole visual aesthetic are really cool and uplifting, and boy he doesn’t disappoint. Firstly the use of visuals on stage are like nothing I have ever seen at Islington Mill from the opening of his face as a backdrop singing ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’ you know it’s going to be a great night despite there only being 30 people here.
The set is a run through of most of the Bent album, ‘Listen 2 the Grrrls’, ‘Psy-chic’, My Love Grows In The Dark, ‘Luvvbazaar’, ‘High’, ‘Credit In The Straight World’ and ‘Feelz Good (4Evr)’ plus all the good stuff from the first album ‘Fools Gold’, ‘Clown’ but sadly no ‘Warm Glove’.
On record he sounds like electro pop heaven but the sound takes on a way heavier aspect when played with live drums, in fact his t-shirt listing riot grrl bands and NiN couldn’t have been more appropriate.
While he’s making sure that everyone’s having as much fun as he is by getting the audience to join him on the stage, sing along, do the woo woo’s and all that other stuff that you would expect, he’s also making sure that we all know how in control of us he actually is.
I’ve been to a lot of shows and this was one of those rare occasions when you walk out of a place and think “god damn more people should have seen that”. My only hope is that he will come back soon so all the people that missed him this time can bathe in his wonderful live show next time around.
Big ole homo guy from Manchester, with a love of all music barring classical and most opera.I love being right at the front of a gig and getting involved, be that having a good dance or a mosh pit, never seen the point of going to gigs and standing at the back, get involved people.
