Well, it’s only been about 25 years plus a couple added for Covid cancellations but the truth is I never expected to be able to see and for the 1st time actually review a Gaye Bykers On Acid show, but here we are. Allow me to put my teeth back in and reminisce a little but I used to be a dirty Grebo and around the late 80 and early 90’s saw the band a lot and somehow remember some of the best live shows I ever witnessed. These include The Clarendon Ballroom, the group in fluorescent paint and darkness firing foam cannons at us and turning the dance floor into a lethal skating rink. Brunel University, dancing on the tables whilst under the influence of LSD. The ULU with Doctor & The Crippens throwing exploding cabbages at us. A local show at the long-gone Kenton Plough. Then there were the festivals. Acid Daze in Finsbury Park 1987 with a head-stewing line up including Naz Nomad and The Nightmares, Ozric Tentacles and Hawkwind. Redding 1989 when it used to be a real music festival. The legendary Treworgey Tree Fayre in Cornwall 1989. Supporting Hawkwind under their Lesbian Dopeheads On Mopeds guise at a Brixton Academy all-nighter. I missed the Electric Banana tour reformation due to being at Bloodstock but somehow, we are back here tonight (with the exception of Tony Byker who lives in Tokyo making it impossible for him to attend). Memories will flash through our heads and brain cells will be lost…

To be honest not a huge amount of attention was spent on support act The Charlemagnes and their three-chord garage snot-punk, we were busy catching up, checking merch, necking pints and outside watching people arrive including, one couple freshly from shopping in Oxford Street attempting to bring a large TV into the venue with them!? As a mate pointed out, the singer did indeed look like a young Jimmy Pursey and they successfully treated us to their sounds of the suburbs although claims that they are “saving punk rock” can be taken with a pinch of salt.

With the sold-out venue filling up we are treated to the warped droogy tones of the Clockwork Orange intro tape which really fired the synapses off in the head and the Bykers were on with the 1st song ever written ‘TV Cabbage’. Having made it off our sofas after a cheeky Pulp Fiction sample we were shuffling away to the psychedelically enhanced grooves spurred on by a happy and gobby Mary Byker and cohorts who seemed totally rejuvenated to be here in London on the penultimate night of the tour. Both they and the audience gradually warmed up Robber Byker cavorts around trading licks, the stand in guy Tom Stanley with long flowing beard and a Grave Lines t-shirt (very cool) looks and sounds the part and we were driven literally into ‘Delirium’. One early observation was how great it is going to a show and actually knowing each and every song within a couple of seconds. Needless to say, there was plenty of singing along. Suitably stewed to the gills we got down to some ‘Harmonious Murder’, grinning at some well-placed Sabbath chords and attempting to stay standing and get some snaps (mobile photos only tonight unfortunately).

Legendary early classics like ‘Get Down’ had the pit opening up in a very good-natured way and by the time they played the punkish ‘It Is R U’ the joint is skanking; there are even ladies on shoulders to ‘Shoulders’ which all made perfect sense. It’s a jungle out here and we are reminded Charlie Don’t Surf and regaled by Mary about an early muse to creativity being Ian Banks classic Wasp Factory novel. He asks who has read it and plenty of hands go up. ‘Rad Dude is riotous and comes across like a perfect mash up of The Stupids and The Beastie Boys. Relatively new song ‘Sodium Sun’ is aired and gives us a chance to calm a bit, ‘Mary even suggesting it a good time to go to the bar which seems like a perfectly reasonable request to me. I will have to go back to this one and keep fingers crossed a new album eventually appears. Before we head out, ears ringing, everything aching to the bloody Xmas lights of our capitol it’s left to Everything’s Groovy, which it indeed is baby and Nosedive Karma to see us out. A sudden urge to stage dive comes over me but thankfully realisation that it would be a real bad idea for the band’s equipment, the throng at the front, me and the venue floor has sanity prevailing.

One last essential thing on the way out was picking up new book Grebo ‘The loud and lousy story of Gaye Bykers and Crazyhead’ by Rich Deakin (Headpress) which I had just read about in Vive Le Rock. Consider this a plug for what I am sure will be a brilliant read. Top night all round, we came, we danced and fingers crossed will have somehow avoided the plague. Hopefully the tour has encouraged the Bykers to ride out once more and keep on going down the dirty highway of rock n’ roll we love, for a fair few more years to come

Pete Woods.