Everyone keeps telling me about this fantastic Manchester based band The Vipers, so I sent the fabulously talented Nickie McGowan to Night and Day to check them out.

Nickie McGowan - “I turn up at tonight’s venue early, as The Vipers are first on stage. The crowd is small and mostly older-rockabilly types. The floor starts to fill out a little just as The Vipers hit the stage and proceed to blow a good few heads off within the space of about two minutes. Even though the crowd isn’t huge, all the people sitting down stand up when The Vipers are on to their second song…its no surprise that this fantastic band catch people’s attention pretty quickly. Based in our very own Manchester, The Vipers are exactly what the UK music scene needs… a huge dose of proper Rock and Roll.

Rock and Roll has been completely lost in the ever-growing number of indie bands who are copies of other indie bands; it’s a horrible circle of terrible music. Of course we have amazing Rock and Roll from other countries courtesy of Queens Of The Stone Age, Wolfmother and The White Stripes… and The Vipers would be perfect playing alongside all of those bands.

The best thing about The Vipers is the fact that they incorporate every sub-culture…Punks love them, Rockabillys love them and your average Joe love them. Not being a part of a scene is rare these days so when a band like this comes along take notice and go see them play. Each band member plays an instrument, which means you are going to get your face melted by not one but two bass guitars… loud as f**k. The bands debut EP ‘Fear Of The Redheads’ consists of six mind-blowing tracks with dirty, sexy vocals and dirtier, sexier riffs. The Vipers also released ‘Satellite Boys’ as a single and rightly so, it’s a killer track. When the band perform Satellite Boys at the gig I want to move my whole body and shake my hips until they break, it’s the same when they play ‘Rats’ and ‘Little Princess’… two of the six tracks on the EP (which you should all buy, right now).

Near to the end of The Vipers set there were more people on the floor than for any other band that night, although it seemed unfair that The Vipers were first on stage when they were obviously the most exciting and energetic band there. Ok so I am being over the top in my enthusiasm for The Vipers, but it is truly deserved. I spend hours every day listening to new bands and being bored sh**less by them all, so when a band comes along that excites me and sits next to The Stooges in my record collection, you know you are onto a good thing. If you like your rock and roll dirty, savage and impossibly exciting, then this is the band for you”.

Text and photos by Nickie McGowan

www.myspace.com/nakanickie

For more info on The Vipers
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Music, photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.