G.N.A. / DEVILISH PRESLEY The Horseshoe, Portsmouth. 30/01/04

The delights of The Horseshoe on a cold wet Friday night. Will anyone turn up? Does anyone care? Last time I ventured here was to see a supposed gig by Aconite Thrill, but no Thrill and the staff didnt know what I was on about. I had to suffer some dodgy cover band while I downed my pint to refresh myself after a 40-minute hike. The Horseshoe is a pub next to a busy roundabout; they hire out a room upstairs for gigs. The holes in the carpet are bigger than the actual pieces of carpet left intact, manky is the word that springs to mind. As it turns out around 40 people have braved the weather and the pub, which makes for a decent crowd here.

A long wait and then a bloke with a shaved head picks up the guitar, a punk girl with black hair straps on the bass and a drum machine kicks in. All eyes turn to witness the stripped down Rock n Roll of Devilish Presley. Think The Kills having it away with the maggoty corpse of Sigue Sigue Sputnik and crawling out of the beards of ZZ Top like some strange creature. He sings, shouts and plays guitar solos on top of chairs while telling us were boring for not moving. She looks punk rock cool and screams out some backing vocals. This is good time Rock n Roll, cheap sounding DIY blues and as they said, if you cant dance to this youve got two left feet. Unfortunately, most of the people in Pompey have two left feet but D.P. made an impression and it was fun crawling through the wreckage of rock. Sure to be stars on that new ORG compilation.

So then, G.N.A. are back out of hiding and fancied a trip to the seaside. Its lucky Im here at all; The Horseshoe is a place I rarely walk past on my general meanderings. But I happened to have a rare passing on the Wednesday prior to the gig and spotted a small poster in the window, just the one mind, lucky I didnt miss it. A few other posters out and about may have helped, perhaps I just walk in the wrong areas and didnt see them, but lets face it people if we dont know a gig is happening were not going to come are we?

Two members of G.N.A. make a low-key entrance start up the music and that industrial/rock beat kicks in. Main man Brian appears from the broom cupboard that doubles as a dressing room / storage area. Hes tall, pumped up, naked from the waist up and is running around the room shouting in peoples faces. They look genuinely scared. As he moves to the front the full glory of his outfit is revealed, bottomless and crotch less trousers rounded off with a leather thong. He proceeds to then vomit out words like its the end of the world; Ive never seen an audience move back in a room so quickly as tonight. They think they are safe from Brians tongue-lashings once his mic lead reaches full stretch but how wrong they are. While the industrialized / punk beats pound away he manages to confront nearly everyone in the room with or without a microphone. He scares the life out of the glass collector who looks like a 16 year old lad, he takes his standard Pompey casual baseball cap and puts it on, the kid threatens him with a glass to the face. Come on then is Brians response and chases him across the bar top. At various stages hes wrapping himself in the manky rugs, pulling people backwards off chairs and writhing about on top of them. Screaming at peoples kneecaps while on all fours like some kind of rabid dog or chasing those trying to avoid him round the room. Me, I get off lightly. He leans on the bar next to me and gives me a few insane grins. Perhaps its because I didnt move back, perhaps he could just tell I was a believer. It certainly made for an edgy night and at times the antics overshadowed the music but I blame the venue as the sound is quite poor and really G.N.A. need some big industrial size speakers behind them to rip out peoples guts. Havent a clue about any song titles tonight, it was more of an event and the titles dont seem that important at this point in time.

Funny, I passed the three members of G.N.A. on my way to the venue and as they passed me the heavens opened for a good downpour and I thought to myself how much they looked like an attitude laden rock band amongst the rabble of Pompey casuals heading out to their Friday night pub punch ups. Should have said hello but then Brian may have done more than grin at me at the bar! Are you ready to suffer? (GREBO) More G.N.A.