Aural Aggravation

Christopher Nosnibor

Thursday night in Leeds, and while the extent to which grassroots venues are struggling is a hot topic right now, you’d never think it on arrival at The Brudenell, who are packing two sold-out shows simultaneously tonight, and it’s getting busy the moment they open the doors.

They must have done a massive batch of wristbands for Yard Act’s recent residency, as they’re still using them tonight. I was glad to whip that one off the moment I’d left – I’d hate for anyone to think I’d actually gone to see them. But it’s good to know they’re not going to waste, and they’re using surplus wristbands rather than increasing beer prices (the fact there’s a major-league venue where you can still get a pint – and a decent pint at that – for £3.40 in 2024 is amazing and testament to The Brudenell’s operational model).

It might have been while watching an episode of Law and Order that I quite recently discovered the significance of jade hairpins as a thing, but the band? They’re an unknown quantity. Sometimes surprises are a good thing. Others, no so much. The only positive about turning up for this acts is that… no, there’s not one positive. They are fucking awful. I’ve come to give leeway to acts who aren’t my thing, who are a bit ropey, who may be having an off night, who are new… and as such it’s rare that I actively dislike a band. But Jade Hairpins are so awful it hurts. They sound like they can all play, individually, but together? No. They make a horrible uncoordinated mess of doing big 80s radio rock and everything about it is simply wrong and their set drags for the longest and most painful half hour imaginable.

In contrast, Pissed Jeans power through their set in the blink of an eye. This review has taken considerably longer to write than the set’s duration. The fact of the matter is that it’s difficult to really do justice to a performance of this calibre. Bassist Randy Huth is wearing a Poison Idea T-shirt, in case anyone needed reminding of the band’s hardcore credentials. They shouldn’t: their latest album, Half Divorced, is a really gnarly beast of an album that really does dig deep into their roots, and is a blistering roar of a record, which was always going to translate into some intense live performances.

They’re straight in with a couple of cuts from the new album, Half Divorced, dispatching ‘Sixty-Two thousand Dollard in Debt’ up front with a corpuscle-busting ferocity.

The thing about Pissed Jeans, as I mentioned in my review Half Divorced, is that they’ve evolved as they’ve aged, and if Why Love Now was a nasty and at times awkward and uncomfortable discussion of office politics, shoving the wrongness of toxic masculinity in our faces, Half Divorced is the sound of midlife crisis articulated as rage thrown in every direction, but none more forcefully than inwards.

Matt Korvette’s performances have always been centred around his being a guy who’ s not especially cool playing at being cool because he’s on stage – the slightly off-key office team leader who resents his job and everything corporate and yearns to be a full-time rock star but has bills to pay, so sucks it up while seething, and then pouring all of this festering frustration into the music. For me – and surely many others – much of the appeal of Pissed Jeans has been around their knack for ‘keeping it real’ – uncomfortably so, grappling with the aggravations of mundane white-collar existence. Drummer Sean McGuinnes’ frayed sticks (I spend half the set wondering how long before one of them splinters mid-song: he doesn’t play gently) aren’t an affectation: he’s got bills to pay which take priority over having a sackful of gleaming fresh sticks hanging off his – very modest – kit.

So how do Korvette’s cool slick moves and poses work now he’s no longer cool and dynamic, that rad and right-on, go-getting new team manager, and instead he’s bald (shaven head to hide the onward match of hair loss) and flabby in his vest and bust-out-at-the crotch and back pockets ragged jeans? It could be cringey, like seeing fat Elvis or Guns ‘n’ Roses. But no: perhaps it’s my age, but this performance channels a powerful energy, a recognition that life is racing past and there’s no stopping it, so when the opportunity’s there, you go all out.

The audience spans a massive demographic, and the reaction says no-one here thinks they’re past anything. The exchanges between band and audience are magnificently difficult, even tetchy – the ultimate bantz.

While much of the set – unsurprisingly – showcases Half Divorced, with ‘Moving On’ standing out as a ragged anthem with an upbeat sentiment that sounds more like a delusional self-spoken pep-talk than a real statement of positive intent – ‘Love Without Emotion’ and ‘Ignorecam’ from Why Love Now are raw and ragged. They blast through the songs so as to render them a blur, and the set doesn’t delve too far into their back catalogue for the most part, but ends with a blinding rendition of rabid slacker anthem ‘False Jesii Part 2’.

An encore isn’t always guaranteed with Pissed Jeans, but they’re back on about a minute later to blast out a two-song encore that lasts about three minutes and probably featured ‘Monster’ and ‘Boring Girls’.

It’s all over in an hour and fifteen and the lights are up at 10:15, but no-one’s leaving feeling short-changed: we’ve just witnessed a total sonic tornado, and a band on top form.