21/3/2006 Suffrajets & Fuck All Else To Do @ the Barfly

Subject	Suffrajets & Fuck All Else To Do @ the Barfly
PostedDate	3/21/2006 5:19:00 AM
	Yet another trip to the Barfly, to see the Suffrajets and Ribsy their faithful merch guy's band Fuck All Else To Do - who ironically are headlining!  I arrive to find a band already playing downstairs - this is how they manage to get seven bands on the bill. Where else can you see seven bands in one venue for around a fiver? And the beer isn't too outrageously priced either - I like the Barfly.  The Suffrajets are a band I always seem to catch when they are on the same bill as another band I'm going to see; Girlschool, Towers Of London, Danko Jones, FAETD, ect as is the case tonight. Suffrajets are better than last time I saw them (supporting Towers Of London @ the Underworld) and the new girls are finding their place in the band now - last time I saw them I got the impression they were just 'making up the numbers'. Their songwriting has certainly improved over the years, and the vocals are much better too now Alex is making more of an effort to actually sing. That said, I'm surprised the band haven't made more progress since the the time I saw them a good few years ago now - they are still a support band at venues like the Barfly, and tonight their merchandise man has his own band playing over the Suffrajets on the bill! To be fair, the room upstairs is pretty full when the girls are on stage and noticably less so when FAETD go on afterwards so Suffrajets obviously are the main draw tonight. The girls get the crowd going and there is a pit down at the front. They encourage a stage invasion later in their set and the mosh pit crew are only too happy to oblige. Merch man/roadie Ribsy also appears and stage and grabs the mic to sing along and generally rabble rouse - looking like a rock star in his shades and leopardskin coat and upstaging the Suffrajets - while simultaneously namechecking his own band who will be on stage shortly after!  The man has more front than Brighton!  The crowd has thinned somewhat by the time 'headliners' Fuck All Else To Do take to the stage. Those who have left miss quite a spectacle as Ribsy does his best to upstage the previous acts in the most outrageous and punk rock way he can! The set is virtually all punk, trash, and New York sleaze covers. The rest of the band seem competent enough musicians, but their frontman is so outrageous and over the top that you hardly notice they are there as they grind out their dirty rock 'n' roll racket in the background. Ribsy steals most of his act shamelessly from the likes of Iggy Pop and Jim Morrison. He rolls about on the stage, cuts his chest repeatedly with broken beer bottles, pulls his leather jeans down and shows us his arse, jumps into the crowd - the most outrageous on-stage antics I've seen since Alex Kane's infamous performance with AntiProduct when they supported Silver Ginger 5 at the Astoria. Like the band's name, their performance is not for the faint hearted!