Arrived in Crane Lane to a fairly empty room for the O’Death gig, was worried there would be no atmosphere for the gig. Also, the only song I had checked out of O’Death’s was Nathaniel, which is great, but quite slow and dirgeful for the most part – so this is what I was expecting.

What I got was high energy, shit kicking, full on rocking music of a genre that was certainly country but also contained strains of god knows how many other genres including, undeniably, punk.

The gig kicked off to a smallish audience, but the manic drummer beckoned the crowd forward, and we dutifully shuffled forward a few feet. Not enough though, there was still space at the front, right by the band. The drummmer was not satisfied and he abandoned his drum kit to come and point at the empty space and yell over the music at the audience to fill that space.

We weren’t going to mess with him, and I’ve never seen a crowd move so fast to do what they were told.

Very quickly the room filled up as the band belted out their catalogue of amazingly high energy country-punk-bluegrass-gypsy-metal or whatever you want to attempt to label them today.

The band initiallly seemed somewhat bemused by the crowd, possibly due to the seeming lack of reaction in the form of dancing, but I think the audience were simply dumbstruck by the genius of it all. As the whooping, screaming and clapping after each song only grew stronger the band seemed to relax in the knowledge they were appreciated and went from strength to strength.

Check out this song and then imagine it done with ten times more energy at at least four times the speed and you’ll get an idea of what a live gig of O’Death’s is like.

There were five guys playing on stage in the Crane Lane as far as I remember, the singer (and guitar player), bass player, violin player, banjo player and drummer – but I was too close to the stage to get them all in the photos above.

The drummer and violin player were particularly intimidating – screaming and glaring at the audience, stalking the stage and jumping around like lunatics. The Bass player was a slightly more introverted brand of lunatic wild hair and beard moshing away on stage – his screaming mostly directed at the violin player. The singer and banjo player were slightly more approachable seeming, with that odd Will Oldham style shyness about them.

We were somewhat disappointed that the drummer never got his fistful of chains out to whip his drumset into a frenzy (see aforementioned video of Nathaniel), but we did get treated to his taking a large cymbal, standing on his drumseat, holding it over his head and crashing it down over his entire drumkit as a song finale at one point.

The set was short enough by today’s standards, somewhere about the hour mark, but no one was complaining, the energy invested in that single hour was quadruple what other bands would give you in double the time. Work that one out.

Unbelievable that this was a free gig. I’ve paid huge amounts of money to see bands who couldn’t begin to compare to the talent this band has.

Not to mention that after the gig the band mingled with the crowd and generally hung out for a while, and you couldn’t possibly meet a nicer bunch.

Tour dates on their site. Do not miss.