Fuck… where can you start with Heck?
For those who don’t know, this 30 minutes at set marked the end of an era for the of The UK’s most loved noise-merchants. The band built a rabid cult following based on the fact that their live shows were legendarily chaotic. Heck would play everywhere from on top of bars to on top of the crowd itself. They brought an energy that had to be felt to be believed. This is something that you’ll just have to take our word for now.
Still, for those lucky enough to be there, this was one last chance to experience the force of nature that was Heck. The set kicks into gear when the band drops the fan favourite ‘Powerboat Disaster’. In what perhaps is an encapsulation of everything that made Heck great, the song combines cacophonic riffs with a brilliantly catchy shout-a-long chorus. Naturally, the crowd bellow it out like their lungs depend on it.
‘The Breakers’ is introduced as a song about “doing whatever the fuck you want”. This sums up Heck’s whole philosophy to a tee. The crowd respond in kind. Crowd surfers are sent over the barrier, flipping off the audience as they go. Meanwhile, guitarist and vocalist Jonny Hall makes his way to the back of the tent to perform on top of anything that puts him at a higher altitude.
During the atypically melodic (by Heck’s standards, anyway) ‘The Great Hardcore Swindle’, the band demands the biggest wall of death of their career. By all accounts, they receive it. They end on the rarely aired ‘Dave Lankester’, which sees their other guitarist and vocalist Matt Reynolds crowd surf on a bit of carpet. It marks a typically strange, chaotic, and fitting end to a beloved band’s career.
