A no-frills Puppy headline performance at Clwb Ifor Bach was a reminder that, at the end of the day, the music should always take centre stage. Despite their playful name, the London band focused on playing their metallic riffs to the crowd, with no fooling around.
The venue’s downstairs room was the perfect location for Puppy, allowing the small-ish crowd to be within spitting distance of the band. This aided the acoustics, though unfortunately at points frontman Jock Norton’s usually powerful vocals were masked by the instrumentals. This was also reflected in the stage lighting – which, oddly, was on bassist Will Michael, and left Jock in the shadows.
Nevertheless, the band launched into the heavy opener Shining Star, the shoegazey …And Watched it Glow and the upbeat Black Hole before welcoming the crowd. This being the second night of touring for Puppy’s new album Pure Evil, you could tell they were genuinely happy to be on the road again, commenting that it was their first proper tour since 2019 thanks to the pandemic.
Puppy are a difficult band to box into a single genre, their alt-rock, stoner metal mixture reminiscent of Black Sabbath, Dinosaur Jr and Weezer. They don’t take themselves too seriously, which is refreshing for a rock band: “We don’t need to throw up our middle finger … or talk about how intense we are,” as Jock once said in an interview with Kerrang!
This was evident in the band’s casual, friendly interactions with the audience. The stage setup was fun, the members flanked by fake flames – perhaps an ironic nod to those fiery outlandish rock bands they don’t want to be. For the most part, Puppy prefer to let the music alone exhibit passion and energy: at one point, the band left vocalist Jock by himself to play a beautiful, slow solo version of Here At Home, which raised goosebumps.
The performance definitely dipped up and down in its energy, mirroring its tame crowd. Even so, it didn’t stop convincing a few into a mini-moshpit towards the end when the band reunited to perform last songs Forever and Entombed, which was the climax of the short set.
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Mon 16 May
words INDIA MUNDAY photos HANNAH LEYSHON for BUZZ CULTURE
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