Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

There are times when hearing an album by a band finds you sadly lacking the understanding of what to expect when they play live. There is no substitute for watching the group plough a very individual style and perform incredibly on stage and away from the waking dreams you have as the stereo enacts for its own amusement what it wants you to think on how the gig will go. As the lights dimmed in The Cavern, the expectation in those who had lasted the distance of the late session of music, soared and awoke the reason for many in which to take heart with the Fast Camels.

Pure psychedilia, the growling mind-expanding feeling of watching a set of musicians on stage who frame a genre so perfectly that you can only feel sorry for all that came before them. The intoxicating awareness of having had your conscious stretched out before you and understanding it was achieved whilst you were completely and utterly sober is one in which to relish. All you can hope for is that whoever is with you keeps you away from the crayons, graph paper and secret slides of Ministers of state colluding with corporate giants in talks in which to plot the overthrow of the Western World whilst it is happening.

Music is meant to broaden horizons, to open your mind and witness revolutions, occasionally when the mood takes it, it might make you utter the words wow several times during the course of a couple of songs. For those in the vicinity of the stage watching the Fast Camels, it was possible to see the whispered exclamation being uttered many times without them even knowing they had done it. Revolutions have been started on less endorsement.

Tracks seemed to explode out of the guitar with the speed of a bullet passing through a hated despots clerical box and songs such as Privately Insane, the very brand new song Tales of The Expected, the brilliant Penny Pinching Debt Collector, Der Nazi Tea and a fabulous cover of Love’s The Red Telephone all made an evening with the Fast Camels something in which to really tell tales to your grandchildren with.

So much fun, so much imagery and so much entertainment, it’s almost too much for one lifetime to take.

Ian D. Hall