Camden New Journal - Music: The Vibrators

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The Review - MUSIC - grooves with CHARLOTTE CHAMBERS
Published: 30 August 2007

Good vibrations, after all this time

THE VIBRATORS
Camden Underworld
by Mathew Finnegan

SO The Vibrators can now be officially classed as “punk rock relics”. Well, after 15-odd albums I suppose that would be a fair description.
At the Camden Underworld, however, Ian ‘Knox’ Carnochan and co showed they somehow still retain the same onstage energy as the most amphetamine fuelled of snotty punk bands in the seventies.
OK, so I am far too young to have actually witnessed such an event. But despite their advanced years, and Knox’s grey hair dangling from beneath his baseball cap, it appeared to me The Vibrators were on the same unbeatable form that has seen them continue touring for so damn long.
Perhaps best known for the anthemic punk rock of Baby Baby or wild riffs of Automatic Lover, they also launched into covers of songs by some of their contemporaries, including The Ramones Sheena Is A Punk Rocker.
Admittedly, compared to fellow seventies legends The Sex Pistols playing at Finsbury Park or The Clash playing Shea Stadium in America, a slightly less than capacity gig at the Underworld is somewhat underwhelming.
And performing White Riot by The Clash shows that the band have not evolved much in the past 30 years.
But playing stadiums was not part of the punk ideal when The Vibrators formed in 1976, and on the evidence of this vibrant, energetic performance these values are something they have stuck to.
While they may end up being consigned to a mere footnote in the history of punk music that remembers the likes of Sid Vicious, at least The Vibrators are still around for performances like this.

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