Backyard Babies - Rock It Out!

By Ila Desai

Rock City, Nottingham.

This was my 3^rd attempt to see Backyard Babies live, and horizontal rain and the M1 almost made me miss this one! On my first attempt I ended up seeing Garbage – unable to pass up cheap tickets to a sold out gig - and the second, supporting Velvet Revolver, The sound was terrible. Third time lucky though, and I finally get to see the band properly tonight.

I arrived too late to catch first support, Skintight Jaguars, but luckily arrived in time to catch the second band - Crucified Barbara. A four piece from Stockholm, they defy the norm in girl bands and rock hard, fast, and would damn sure leave good-looking corpses. Singer Mia has a voice that could be compared with the best in the business. The music is a mix of 90’s influenced rock & metal that wins over the packed crowd from the first song. Songs to check out include ‘In Distortion We Trust’, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Batchelor’ and ‘Bad Hangover’. Guessing by the huge queue at their merch stand on the way out, Crucified Barbara are setting themselves up for great things.

The Backyard Babies are now 6 albums into their career, and have spawned a number of side projects and collaborations (including the gloriously dirty Super$hit 666 with Ginger of ‘The Wildhearts’, who also wrote a couple of tracks for the Band). Tonight they seem to be having a blast, with Dregen playing whilst strolling along the bar during one song, getting a good slug of the audience’s drinks along the way. Not even sporadic technical issues are able to dampen the good mood in the venue. The band seems genuinely proud of their new album, kicking off with new track ‘The Ship’, and peppering the remaining set with an even mix of new and old material, and with songs like ‘Fuck off and Die’ the new album is sure to be making the setlist for a long time to come. There’s plenty of banter in between songs, keeping the heaving crowd happy, and Dregen raises cheers from the crowd with his shout of “good to be back in Robin Hood country”. Personal favourites of the night are “Dysfunctional Professional” from the old and “Come Undone” from the new. Here’s hoping I’ve broken my bad luck with the BYB, and I’ll be making show number 2 very soon.

Ila