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.
