Erotic Secrets of Pompeii
The Joiners, Southampton
21 May 2024
Ged Babey insisted that the debut album is a masterpiece and seeing the band live for the first time on the self-funded Mondo Maleficum tour his evangelism has reached volcanic proportions. He gets himself in a right lava…
I knew they would be good. But Erotic Secrets of Pompeii are a jaw-droppingly great live band. The theatrical athleticism of the singer, backed by stunning musicianship on songs like no other.
‘This will be one of those gigs where in five years time everyone will swear they were here’
A Tuesday in Southampton the week before the first big festival of the year (Bearded Theory) and there were less than fifty people there. Nonetheless, ESoP play as if they are at Wembley Stadium and Tom Hawtin (Malevolent Exorcist, Perverted Priest, Goodtimes Guru) commanded the stage with a presence that is part The Joker -as played by Iggy Pop and part Nick Cave as Frankenfurter, but all very much his own creation.
Other people mention Freddie Mercury, Tom Waits and David Byrne (as played by David Tennant!) as being noticeable influences, but basically, Tom is a hyperactive showman onstage – a star.
Although the focus, this is a band of skilled, completely in-sync musicians -dressed in red and black uniforms – but wrapped up in their epic, grandiose songs.
Theatrical image aside it is the songwriting which separates ESoP from any other current band. But live, you just can’t take your eyes off them.
The music is punk-edged prog, a gleeful gothic, a dark, intelligent English rock’n’roll – again, the band get compared to everyone from Franz Ferdinand to Queens of The Stone Age, Marilyn Manson to Queen by others, Virgin Prunes and Punishment of Luxury by me. Yet ludicrous as it sounds, they are somehow the most original band around.
The set included seven of the ten songs on the album plus earlier singles the call and response crowdpleaser Nemesis Please and In the Cosmic Hour. It flew by and was up there with some of the very best performances I’ve ever seen.
There is something very special about the Erotic Secrets of Pompeii. A knowing self-confidence, that they are on the outside of everything and have nothing to lose. They just want to be the best band they possibly can be, have a lot of fun and not compromise their combined vision of what it should sound like, look like and express. Songs about Greek myth, history, Hades and Armageddon have never sounded so sweet and danceable.
Erotic Secrets of Pompeii are the must-see band of 2024.
~
Last two dates on the Mondo Maleficum May 2024 tour
22 May – Plymouth, the Junction
23 May – Exeter, Move Live
All words Ged Babey
Photos by Michele Paul Photography
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