LIVE REVIEW : THE FLESHTONES AT THE SHACKLEWEL​L ARMS 8/12/2012

As told in Joe Bonomo's book Sweat, the Fleshtones in the aftermath of a terrible English tour in the 1980's had sworn to never play a show in the UK again. That vow was first broken in 2006 when they played a one off London show and it was defintely burried this year with the short english leg of their fall 2012 tour. Organized by Dirty Water Club, the gig took place in the dancehall of the Shacklewell Pub in Hackney. The soundcheck started a bit late which meant opening act the DeRellas played to an already packed room. I must admit I wasn't very impressed by them and was glad their set only lasted 30 minutes (special mention to the bass player who despite his ugly mug was still confident enough in his "sex appeal" to display a unused condom popping up from his jeans backpocket...).

 After a short break, The Fleshtones came on stage and started playing "Hitsburg USA". The smallness of the room meant the band had to cut down on the stage antics that are usually featured in their show. We still got the wheel of talent routine where all the band members spin on themselves. The "shadows-like"choregraphed kicks in the air ended up with Keith Streng kicking a slightly over-enthusiastic female fan in the nose !!! The setlist was quite different from the show I saw earlier this year in Marmande (south west France) which shows that the band is not going through the motions and playing the same songs over and over again in the same order. Most of the bands recent lp's were quite heavily featured (for some reason I don't recall anything from "Take a good look" being played but I might be wrong). We didn't get "I want the answers" from Beachhead which is one my favourite Fleshtones track but that was more than compensated by rousing versions of "Pretty, pretty,pretty" and "Push-up-man" (followed by the usual push contest between Keith Streng and Ken Fox). The gig finished in grand style with Zaremba crowdsurfing over us which unfortunately involved him knocking a pint of cider on my girlfriends jacket...