One thing that’s amused me over the years of seeing bands that have travelled from some part of the US to play in the UK is the weirdness of locations they usually end up in. Take Tuesday night’s gig for example, the legendary Lungfish. Here’s a massively influential band hailing from Baltimore (and being the only signing to Dischord not from Washington, D.C) playing in a social club in some random ghetto area of Leeds.

In many ways though it’s perfectly fitting, and sums up the DIY ethic and grass roots effort that makes bands like Lungfish and labels like Dischord so special. What amuses me is the underground aspect of it all, like how many people who live in the surrounding area know about this? Probably none.

Anyway, I’m going nowhere with that thought so he’s some stuff about the gig itself. Truth be told I was expecting to be a little disappointed; Although I’ve heard so many people speak about how incredible Lungfish are live, I just couldn’t imagine it. Their music can be simplistic, always mesmerising, and totally unique, but I couldn’t picture how this would come off in a live setting. Having now seen them play though I can safely say you’ve no idea how utterly incredible Lungfish really are until you see them live.

Before Lungfish though, and probably the surprise of the night, was a band called ‘Unit Ama’ from Newcastle. Imagine a slightly math-ier Shellac including typically abrasive, angular guitar work, caffeinated ryhthms and ominous sounding bass. They noodled around a bit too much towards the end, but overall played an extremely tight and technical set that seriously fucking impressed me. They haven’t recorded anything yet, but you really do want to keep an eye out for them.

And on to Lungfish. The thing that moved me most about their set wasn’t Daniel Higgs enigmatic performance, nor the mesmerising, almost tribal percussion and guitar work played out between the other three members, it was just their whole damn sound. Despite being in some random little social club the acoustics were actually very good and the way Lungfish’s instruments and vocals came off as a result was amazing. They rocked for a good hour or so (and then an encore at the end), starting off with the title track from their last album ‘Necrophones’ and playing most songs from their new album as well as a few older favourites (but nothing off ‘Rainbow from Atoms’, sadly).

I snapped off some crap photos which are here, and that was that.