TOTAL CHAOS London, February 29th 2008


TOTAL CHAOS

London
The Bridgehouse 2
February 29th

4/5

The room smells of testosterone and cheap hairspray when Californian based punk rockers Total Chaos burst into their first song ‘Dancing On Your Grave’ from their brand new album. There seems to be some lack of movement onstage, but they sound amazing. Rob Chaos delivers his lyrics with conviction and the beer soaked punk audience play their part. Few songs in and few bouncers come and stand in front of the band making sure there won’t be any extra Mohicans on stage. This causes a bit uneasy atmosphere since after all wasn’t punk supposed to break down these rock clichés. Songs such as ‘Attack’ offers their Motley Crue styled guitarist Shawn Smash the opportunity to show his great skills on hard rock soloing. ‘Complete Control’ was their anthem that was supposed to get them on heavy MTV rotation during the mid-90’s commercialisation of punk. Never happened, but surely the bands set and 18 year long career is a true testimony of great song writing. Not a weak song to be heard. Their first encore offers a great surprise. It’s none other than a punked up version of the infamous Monty Python song about the lumberjack wearing high heels! Almost needless to say that the audience also knows the lyrics to this song as well. Couple more classics in the form of ecstatic ‘Riot City’ and they finish off with ‘Boot Party’ sing-along and the leave the drunken audience to stagger fulfilled back into the London night.
Words: Jyrki “Spider” Hämäläinen
 

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