BIG SPECIAL, a punk duo from the midlands, took to The Jazz Cafe’s stage in Camden to play their biggest London headline show to date on Thursday 16th May. The gig was in celebration of their debut album, POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES, which was released the week before.
The venue was crammed with excited fans, the demographic of the audience being pint-loving men above the age of fifty which the duo made reference to during their set, nicknaming them the ‘Radio 6 Dad’s’. They gained their support after their song, ‘THIS HERE AIN’T WATER’, was played a few times on Radio 6 and was received exceptionally well by the listeners.
Before the duo made their appearance on stage at around 9:20pm, the support acts riled up the audience. Zac Lawrence, the frontman of DEADLETTER took to the stage to perform solo for the evening, and an all-female four-piece called Friedberg who merged alt-rock with bedroom pop performed afterwards. Friedberg provided a good warm-up for the crowd, with the lead singer, Anna Friedberg, capturing their attention with her unexpected mastery of the cowbells.
BIG SPECIAL made a dramatic entrance, swaggering on-stage dressed as cowboys; adorned in cowboy hats and patterned bandanas that covered their mouth and nose– which also proved to be a useful tool to wipe away their sweat throughout the high-energy performance. They each held a banana, which they used as makeshift guns, pointing them at the audience and then throwing them in– two lucky members of the crowd that evening had a potassium-filled snack for the journey home.
After ditching their cowboy get-up, Joe Hicklin took his place at the mic and Callum Moloney at his drum kit, beginning their set with the first track of their new album which is called BLACK COUNTRY GOTHIC; a song that merges the loud, yelling aspect of punk in the verses with a bluesy, country sound during the chorus with Hicklin’s vocals becoming deeply soulful.
They performed their debut album from top to bottom, and around fifteen minutes into the set they played their most anticipated song, ‘SHITHOUSE’. Zac Lawrence joined BIG SPECIAL on stage for this song, amping up the energy even more. With wide eyes and wild hand gestures, Hicklin yelled the lyrics to the audience, and although there weren’t any mosh-pits for this extremely mosh-pit-worthy song, the ‘Radio 6 Dad’s’ did nod their heads more vigorously and stamp their feet a bit faster.
Throughout the entire set, Moloney played the drums with extreme spirit, hitting them as hard as he could and pulling animated faces. When he wasn’t sticking out his tongue, he was ad-libbing into the mic next to him with loud shouts or maniacal laughter.
Joe Hicklin isn’t just the lead singer of this punk duo, but also a poet; a lot of the songs he wrote having had their origins in poetry form. The pace of the set was slowed down a couple of times for the more-than-welcome recital of these poems. Moloney, branding his bandmate ‘Edgar Allan Joe’, put on gentle synth tracks with the tinkle of piano keys and stepped away from his drum kit, leaning on the bannister behind him whilst he listened along with the audience and watched Hicklin with a look that can only be described as pure admiration. Hicklin held a piece of paper and read out his poems with immense emotion and sincerity; his choked voice alongside the sorrowful look in his eyes added more meaning to his words.
Just as quickly as the set was slowed down, it was sped back up for their song, ‘TREES’, with both Hicklin and Moloney entering into the crowd, putting their arms around the audience members, ruffling their hair and singing along with them. Moloney, to the security’s dismay, climbed the bannister above the stage and hung off of it in true punk-rocker fashion, staying suspended there for the rest of the song.
The one hour and ten minute set was unwaveringly eccentric and doused in energy throughout, even in spite of the song’s lyrics exploring dark and downbeat topics like Hicklin’s own experience with depression, a sense of hopelessness and lack of faith in the current political climate. The duo gave not only the audience, but also themselves, an unforgettable evening as they reflected on how much their lives have changed in only the space of a year. Moloney stated that only last year he was a ‘van driver and Joe was a labourer’– a far-cry from being in a part-punk, part-blues duo, releasing albums and selling out London venues. Putting their cowboy hats back on, Moloney and Hicklin embraced each other, thanked the audience for coming to watch them and left the stage.
By the end of their set, the audience was drenched in a mixture of sweat and beer, satisfied with witnessing the beginning of BIG SPECIAL’s uprising in the British punk music scene.
Words by Emma Harrison