Vamos, Ella Guru NoLoGos 18-05-00

Simon Budgen gets caught in the Lib Dem's spillage crisis

It takes a cover of Orgasm Addict to spark up Vamos’ engines – before the Buzzcocks genuflection, we were meandering through a set of slow-punk, thrashing more like a Black and Decker Strimmer than an illustrious machete. After, and the band wield a massive, scary scythe, and cut down all comers. But even while you chew on the chunks of punk, you search for a reason for it all. Sure, you can pogo without an agenda, but clearly the best buzzsaws are the ones that cut with an agenda. By the last song, it seems all Vamos are here to do is to parody Snuff. And how do you set up a band that cheefully covers breakfast cereal ads to be your patsies?

Between sets, the Lib Dems appear to scatter pledge cards throughout the Zanzibar. In the process, they knock over a drink and douse my foot in what tastes later like cheap vodka. Suddenly, Slugger Prescott seems like the safest hands in politics.

Ella Guru start off by recreating Enola Gay, then, thankfully, quickly become more layered and darker. To my left, Anna mutters something about "Placebo Wail" (or, quite possibly, "Whale"), and while there is more than a smidge of Molko here, it’s probably the lads in Clinic who’d be at the head of a case for patent abuse. But while there’s something familiar about the band that were Thinner, they also know how to make the surroundings seem strange, and add in a snarl, a thump, and a smirk that’s all their own. En route, they even manage to hold Serge Gainsborough hostage on stage. Sublime.