Essex vocalist Charlie Longman fronts the punk band Clobber. When I heard that the first night of their Tour was in Wakefield – a town where I’ve got family & friends, I called in a few favours and made the trip to the superb venue VORTEX – famous as a Rock and Metal bar.

The venue is small, with great acoustics. The staff are friendly & there are two bars with a decent selection of beer, lager, cider and spirits, so there isn’t much of a queue even between bands.

Following local band Hospital Food, CLOBBER hit the stage with their usual high octane, fast paced performance. Longman is a born frontman, and delights in winding up the crowd “move forward, stop being boring…..MOVE”. Once the crowd realised that the energy ON stage needed to be matched OFF stage the jumping started!

Throughout the set, the crowds heads were nodding and Longman had them in the palm of his hand. On stage he says “I don’t like to talk between songs…blah blah.. ” and then cuts a heckler down with “…what? you sound like Johnny Vegas, I can’t understand ya….” before diving into another wild track supported by talented musicians that Longman acknowledges during the set.

Half way through Longman puts a shout out to men, reminding them that mental health is important and to “talk to your mates” – it’s a brilliant, well timed message as the hard core outfit launch into another blistering track at break neck speed.

Finishing with the World’s Gone Mental, the crowd went mental proving that the boys from ‘daaawn Souff’ had won over the Yorkshire crowd.  A brilliant night at a superb, grass roots venue. #keepmusiclive

Clobber are supporting Grade 2 until the 19th March.

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