On 11 October 2007 Mindless Self Indulgence (MSI) played The Electric Ballrom in Camden Town, London, UK. Yours truly was there to witness the cult phenomenon from NY in action - and he saw that it was good!
First of all it's got to be said that I'm not a huge fan of the genre that MSI belong to. Already some people may be getting ready to lynch me, claiming that MSI cannot be fitted into any single genre. Don't lynch me, because I agree. So let's widen the meaning of "genre" a little and say that we are in the territory of emo, screamo, eni meeni mini mo, far out descendants of Tyrannosaurus Rage (Against the Machine).
Still disagree? Still not satisfied? You're an embarrassment to me, as Little Jimmy Urine, front man of MSI, would say.
Okay then, let's just call a spade a spade and call the music punk/electro clash with a good bit of screaming and the occasional pseudo-rap thrown in. I'm not keen on it, but MSI are different from many other bands in this ge... - whatever. Not only can Jimmy Urine actually sing - and not just mangled falsetto bursts - but many of the songs are seriously funny and it's not just the lyrics. Listen to the sound of a whip on the track "Shut Me Up". Genius! Jimmy did not bring a whip on stage with him, but when you perform every song with the energy of the Tasmanian Devil, who needs a whip anyway? Sporting his "As Seen On TV" jacket for the first part of the show, Little Jimmy jumped, climbed, crawled and on one occasion nearly electric boogied around the stage, miraculously avoiding major collisions with his bandmates who, although they remained firmly in the background 99% of the time, certainly looked like they were having a blast.
Highlights of the surprisingly long gig included "Stupid MF", "Faggot" and the before mentioned "Shut Me Up" . The second part of the show saw Jimmy lose his jacket and at one point he also lost his microphone, which sparked a hilariously looking search that did not seem to upset Jimmy, but left the rest of the band looking slightly bewildered. After finding the mike again, it wasn't long before he started complaining about the audience looking tired, then gave us the finger throughout an entire song. This along with the occasional spitting from the guitarist were as far as the punk credentials went that night. The songs were stringed together by increasingly mad comments from Monsieur Urine. At one point he launched into a full monologue about being on a space freighter, frozen for seven years, then after his first meal, an alien bursts out of his stomach and starts rapping, because the alien is Method Man (and if you know MSI then you can guess what the rap is)! Okay it may sound well stupid from my description, but trust me it was funny. Then it was straight on to the next song and this was typical of MSI's gig: lots of impro from Jimmy no doubt, but still a super tight set and the music definitely took on a whole new life in its live form.
To save themselves having to return to the stage, MSI did an encore straight after their "last song". It came with an ingenious explanation about why it was a good idea to do that. In case Jimmy uses it again (and it's too good for him not to), I'm not going to spoil it for anyone by describing it here. Loved that last song, but haven't listened enough to MSI to actually know what it was! Maybe someone can help out with a comment.
Although I am still not a huge fan of MSI, I would definitely see them again, because they truly are a L I V E band. If this gig could be as good as it was for someone like me, it must have been amazing (Jimmy told us never to use the word "awesome") for the hard core fans - and there are many of them.
