Grinderman – Leeds University Refectory, Leeds 27/09/2010

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Two albums into their career, and Grinderman are now free to do whatever they want: no matter how much you shout, there will be no Bad Seeds material tonight, and pity the poor soul who screams for Birthday Party material (“Yes…” Nick Cave witheringly deadpans at one such foolhardy heckler, “that makes sense.”). They are well and truly a band in their own right, ready to fuck around with your ears, your brains and – most importantly – your women. But first comes the even more confusing prospect of support band The Hunter Gracchus; a Sheffield-based trio who describe their sound as “non-idiomatic improvised psych/out,” their thirty minute set comprises one ‘song’ – a scratchy, screaming, writhing beast, where the drummer beats his one drum, the guitarist yells into his pick-up, and the saxophone player seems to mimic the sound of a feline holocaust. The Leeds crowd is polarised in the best possible way – most hate what they’re being confronted with, but a precious few are visibly moved – and not just towards the bar; when the band finally find a groove for five minutes, it’s transcendent, but the rest of the set is still difficult to love, if impossible to ignore.

As soon as Grinderman strike up their first song, making no mention made of the indescribable noisebomb which preceded, much of the crowd simply seem happy that any other band is onstage; then again, ‘Mickey Mouse and the Goodbye Man’ is hardly any more listener-friendly, and its live guise – with an extended intro, which allows each member to slink onto the stage one by one – is nothing short of savage. Jim Sclavunos pounds his kit as if he were beating on some kind of biblical foe, whilst Warren Ellis – shirt by Saville Row, facial hair by gypsy caravanserai – charms waves of shamanic noise from whatever instrument he touches. Then, of course, there’s Nick Cave who, at 51, remains as frighteningly compelling a frontman as ever, engaging the front row with every word, and cracking jokes about the gig’s university setting (“So are you all students then?” he quips. The negative response from the audience is deafening). OK, so he needs a lyric sheet to remember all his lyrics (a touch which all but ruined my one experience watching the Bad Seeds a couple of years back), but with Grinderman, his beat-poetry-cum-Freudian-ramblings almost work better when he’s trying to improvise his way out of a forgotten line. And while Grinderman 2 doesn’t quite show off the mutant stoner funk the early reports promised, it takes on a new lease of life in concert; ‘When My Baby Comes’ (think the Melvins reinterpreting Roxy Music’s ‘If There Is Something’) oozes out of the speakers, with Cave somehow able to be just as effective with his preacher routine while a guitar is strapped across his still-remarkably lean torso. ‘Heathen Child’ gains a new ending, as Cave screans at the audience “GIMME THE MONEY! GIMME THE FUCKIN’ MONEY!” like Bob Geldof undergoing an exorcism, while the downright melodic ‘Palaces of Montezuma’, meanwhile, escapes its bizarre recorded hybrid goth and baggy, instead becoming something that – for all its offers of “precious love” – just sounds plain mean.

If Cave is the band’s brain, and Ellis is its soul, Grinderman’s oft-neglected heart is bassist Martyn P. Casey; while all around him create merry hell, he remains practically rooted to his stage-right spot, anchoring each song with a rock solid bassline as if his life depended on it. Take him out of the equation, especially on the tracks from the band’s debut, and a song like ‘Honey Bee (Let’s Fly to Mars)’ would sound like a bunch of fifty-somethings making noise in a garage somewhere. Likewise, the closing ‘Grinderman’ – without his lurching low-end chords – would be a perfect replication of the desolate sound of beards and dust, somewhere in the Outback, but would hardly make for an effective end to the set. Predictably, however, the highlight is ‘No Pussy Blues’, which the band toy with for double its usual running time, turning it into a rampaging monster, as Cave freestyles new verses in which he gets down on at least three knees in order to beg his lady for some sex – and even then, she still doesn’t want to.

It’s a commanding set from a band who have no right to be as ballsy and exciting as they are at their age; whether this tour will have the same effect on their dayjob as their previous record did on the Bad Seeds has yet to be seen. Then again, if not, at least the people of Leeds will have witnessed the Grindermen in full swing – kicking ass, taking names and, of course, making noise.