Sleaford Mods @ the Joiners Arms

Ah, the Joiners Arms, Southampton, the type of venue we need more of, especially down this way. A small pub frontage with a back room stage, no seating to speak of, rough, ready and with atmosphere oozing from it.  The type of venue that puts on smaller bands, local bands, you know the type of thing. The ground floor for future stadium bands on their way up....maybe. Tonights delight were the 'Sleaford Mods'. A hiphop combo delivering rye social comment over repetitive beats, stripped down, it's as much art and poetry as it is music. Bloody fantastic! Our media is saturated with idealized representations of whats 'normal', buy this, have that, consume, the economies getting better, although it's all a lie, well at least it is for many who find themselves disenfranchised in one way or another.  The Sleaford Mods give another narrative, one familiar to those disenfranchised. Tracks like 'Jobseeker, McFlurry and Black Monday' paint a truer picture of modern Britain, of division, of inequality, of consumer and celebrity shite, and of people set adrift. The Sleaford Mods stand out in this respect, they shouldn't really, there should be loads of artists decrying the state of things, but there's not. Corporate media rules the airwaves now, reinforcing the corporate message though every track. Good on the Sleaford fellows, all power to their elbows....we need them. Their support were two young fellows, whose name elude me now, though they were good, pumping out some very acceptable rock beats. My bad for forgetting their name. Anyway. We made our way down the front and waited. A man wearing a baseball cap and dufflecoat tapped on the shoulder so he could get by, to my surprise he proceeded to get up on stage; it was Andrew Fearn, the band member responsible for the music, he popped out a laptop and set it on a small coffee style table.....the beats began. Next up on stage was vocalist Jason Williamson and we were off. What followed was a mesmerizing roller-coaster of words or maybe a flow of social consciousness, or maybe a tirade of angry rants, or......, it doesn't really matter, it was fantastic and all backed by hypnotic beats. Fearn bobbed about at the back, checking the beats and beaming smiles, whilst Williamson delivered lyrics and profanity at a blistering rate. I couldn't stop moving nor smiling.  If you've not seen the Sleaford Mods live, do so, they represent something beautiful, they're something real, telling it straight and a much need tonic to counter the bland banality of corporate slush. We are the Mods! We are the mods! We are, we are, we are the Mods!