///LIVE REVIEW

The Shoks – Mad Ferrett, Preston, 11th February

The club looks like a council estate. That's my first thought upon entering Preston's intimate indie venue, Mad Ferrett (geddit? Mad-fer-it?) To be fair, it's not the fault of the venue itself. The moderately-sized pub/club is a shrine to britpop, decked out in mid-'90s regalia - I spot the collectible Oasis 'fag-packet' singles boxed sets in pride of place behind the bar, in addition to posters and pictures of the lad-rock luminaries liberally splashed around in various corners of this, frankly, charming little night-spot. One can understand why this is a favoured haunt of Preston's indie-rock great-and-good, as well as being a regular stop-off for touring bands. One thing in particular strikes me: It's unbelievably 'northern' – all Morrissey and Marr, Ryder and Brown, not forgetting the ubiquitous Brothers Gallagher. So with all the appropriate britpop dive-bar boxes ticked, why the gut reaction on my part? Well, it's largely down to tonight's clientele, who more closely resemble a mix of off-duty labourers and car-thieves than your typical immaculately-coiffered cheek-sucking hipster kids. Booze and bravado fill the air, and the bellowing morass of distinctly 'out-of-town' revellers appears to be making the locals a mite nervous. Is a fully-fledged wild west bar brawl about to explode? Am I going to get my head kicked in? Well, no. Or at least, not necessarily. These rough-looking chaps are (probably) not here to commit acts of wanton violence – they are here to see The Shoks, Chorley's latest, and perhaps greatest (given that few, if any, great bands come from Chorley) alternative rock exports. I will hold my hands up and admit that I didn't have high hopes for this gig. I'd heard one or two demo tracks prior to tonight, and had written The Shoks off as insipid 'lad-rock'-by-numbers. I mean, they have a song entitled 'I Wouldn't Piss On You If You Were On Fire', for fuck's sake! That, coupled with the scene that greeted me upon arrival at the Mad Ferrett , filled me with profound dread (to be honest, the names of both the club and the band didn't help much, either...), and that familiar sinking feeling you get when you're about to have a crap night, and are unable to stop it. I hate stuff like this. Why am I here? This is going to be awful.

How wrong I was.

The Shoks shuffle onto the stage to ragged cheers from the assembled 'lads', check their instruments and murmur a perfunctory greeting. They then launch into one of the most exciting shows I've seen for quite some time. It's not that they leap around the stage like mad men, because they don't. In fact, they hardly move at all. And it's not that they are musically deft, original, or even particularly creative, because they really, really aren't. What they are is bloody powerful. That's really the only adequate way to describe them. Sound familiar? It should, because watching The Shoks, you could be forgiven for thinking that you're watching Oasis in the very early stages of their career. Their music is bludgeon – punky blues-tinged rock, delivered at blistering volume and with a snarling, ferocious intensity that exudes menace. It's like being mugged. Don't get me wrong, when they miss, they miss by miles – but when they hit, they practically take your head off. Yes, the singer delivers his vocal in a kind of 'Diet Gallagher' sneer which occasionally grates, and the guitarist has a mastery of his craft which might generously be described as 'rudimentary' – however, the rhythm section of drummer and bassist are excellent, tight, brutal, and in all honesty, the driving force behind much of the material. They say a band is only as good as its foundations, and the old cliché is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt on this showing. The Shoks close their set with a song called 'Who R Ya' (seriously) – it's their anthem and clearly the song that the assembled cast of 'Shameless' came to see. They go bananas. In an instant, bodies are flying around the tiny dance-floor, glasses smash and young men sing a terrace refrain to the merciless back-beat. The aggression is seductive, an exhilarating experience.