Amy Taylor and the rest of the Sniffers ambled onto the stage of Birmingham’s O2 Academy to a huge roar of approval from a packed and diverse audience on Sunday evening. With her Farrah Fawcett hairstyle, toothy smile, sparkly bikini, knee length boots and shorts she didn’t look the firebrand that her image suggests – but looks are frequently deceptive, as Birmingham was to find out.
In fact, Taylor laid down the simple but iron rules of the night before Declan Mehrtens had even strapped on his guitar: “If anyone falls down, pick ‘em up. Don’t touch anyone that doesn’t want to be touched.” From there, the band flew straight into the thumping “Doing in Me Head” as Amy paced the stage and plastic cups of beer flew around just above the heads of a somewhat enthused crowd – which was pleasingly not dominated by Radio 6 Dads. There were punks, indie kids, metalheads and skinheads – both sheared and male pattern baldness varieties – sporting T-shirts from the likes of the Melvins, Motörhead and Idles, to name just a few. But more encouragingly, there were also plenty of women and girls of all ages there and all getting into the spirit of things – which can hardly be described as mainstream in the land of loud guitars.
The band barely stopped to catch breath between songs and the spicey “Freaks to the Front” and fiery “Some Mutts (Can’t Be Muzzled)” soon followed, with Amy Taylor going full-dervish, headbanging wildly, thrashing the air and throwing herself around the stage between Mehrtens and bassist Gus Romer. That said, it was no more sedate in the audience and before long there were crowd surfing bodies being passed around well beyond the mosh pit, as showers of beer continued to rain down from above.
“Fuck Donald Trump and fuck every government!” howled Taylor as the Sniffers burst into their most recent single, “Jerkin’”. The audience couldn’t have agreed more and sang back her words at volume – as they did on “Security”, “Guided by Angels”, “Pigs” and so many more songs that could hardly be described as daytime radio staples. Of course, there were also tunes like the magnificent “Chewing Gum”, “U Should Not Be Doing That” and “Tiny Bikini” that might be more recognisable to non-fans and inevitably, these seriously lit a fire under the proceedings. However, it was the howling “Hertz” that finished off the main set and saw the audience going bananas yet again with big grins all around.
Birmingham had no intention of letting its new Aussie friends go off so soon though and Amyl and the Sniffers were quickly dragged back on stage for a suitably feral take on “GFY” from their self-titled first album, with its “And you’re just going to go and fuck yourself!” refrain. The crowd went bonkers for the last time and when the house lights finally came on, they were looking totally spent.
All in all, Birmingham provided an enthusiastic audience for an energetic and rowdy band at a gig that was a fine full-stop to another autumnal weekend. What more might anyone want on a cold and dark Sunday evening?
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