Urge Overkill, London, 1991

Another bit from my concert memories book "Drum Solos, Bottles and Bands - Memories of a Concert-goer 1981-1999" but with some more text as the original entry was quite short. 

Urge Overkill - 9 March 1991

 Another memorable night at a small venue was seeing Urge Overkill when they supported Crazyhead at the Camden Underworld in March 1991. I'd heard the name, but none of their music but I decided to give them a listen when they came on. They were part of the noise-rock scene but looking at them they certainly didn't dress as you would expect. They came on stage wearing velvet suits with large medallions round their necks. They were to go on and write some quite melodic songs but in 1991 their sound was fairly harsh. Part of me wanted to go back to the bar but I felt compelled to watch them as they looked and sounded like nothing I'd ever seen before. I wouldn't say they necessarily upstaged Crazyhead that night, but I certainly remember them more clearly than the headliner.

The Underworld was an unusual venue. It was divided into a number of different rooms with the bar being in a separate part of the venue from where the stage was and there was another room with a pool table. On nights when there wasn’t live music I think it was open as an alternative music club. There were a couple of girls there that night with one of them wearing a Jello Biafra t-shirt and I thought, wow, wish I’d found this place sooner as I’d recently lost my job and would leave London later that month.

A couple of years later Urge Overkill released 'Saturation' which was a superb album. They toured the UK with Belly I think it was but as I wasn’t fan of theirs I didn’t go see them. Shame, as it would’ve been great to hear the songs from Saturation played live.