Although Kurt Cobain’s Nirvana are most synonymous with grunge – the punk-metal hybrid that swept from the Pacific north-west to global domination in the early 90s – the singer acknowledged the pioneering influence of Seattle peers Mudhoney, and particularly their 1988 Superfuzz Bigmuff EP. All these years on, the blend of vocalist Mark Arm’s sneer and guitarist Steve Turner’s distorted solos still sounds edgy and unsettling enough to cause paintwork to crack within a 50-metre radius.
Their only line-up change in 27 years has been the recruitment of bassist Guy Maddison in 2001, and he spends the whole gig grinning like a small child playing with his favourite band. Blond-topped Arm remains curiously youthful, but they no longer pack the hair-flailing raw visual energy of their early shows. However, once the singer is freed from guitar duties to unleash his stage-prowling inner Iggy Pop, the gig takes off. “I’m looking for something no one has,” he wails, convincingly, while bending over backwards.
The 26-song setlist takes their sound on a rampage through psychedelia, blues and even funk grooves on What to Do With the Neutral, from their ninth album, 2013’s Vanishing Point. Chardonnay and lo-fi anthem I Like It Small retain their knack for spiky singalongs.
However, there’s a palpable extra frisson when they pile into the early songs that once waged war on manufactured pop and poodle-hair metal. The likes of Here Comes Sickness and Sweet Young Thing Ain’t Sweet No More crackle with the nihilistic primal menace that once proved too much for daytime radio.
Best of all – still – is Touch Me I’m Sick, which could perhaps have been a Smells Like Teen Spirit-type global outsider anthem had it not been before its time. It’s met with furious slam-dancing, and jubilant imaginary hair-flailing among older male fans who no longer have hair.
