Spotting fans before even being near a music venue isn’t the most challenging of tasks on the night of a gig, and searching for Mindless Self Indulgence (MSI) fans on Birmingham High Street is easier than nuking fish in a barrel. It’s probably a rare sight for most of Birmingham’s residents to see people will hair containing all the colours of the rainbow and more, but the bigger fan can be seen painted as neon-esque zombies (from the cover of 2000’s Frankenstein Girls…).

My hopes of arriving and gaining instant access to the venue were dashed when a security guard told me that everyone had to join the queue, even the elites on the guest list like myself. Seeing the line for entry stretch round the corner and into the next street wasn’t the happiest of sights for me. So I killed some time in a very homey, Irish rock/metal pub. A few pints and shots later, I decided to venture out to the queue, which looked more like a distorted rainbow as more hair dyed fans had arrived while I was drinking. Never the less, I joined the queue, it disappeared quickly , allowing me just enough time to sort out the technological rubiks cube that is my camera before racing down to the photo pit to immortalize the support band (Templeton Pek) in 7.1 mega pixel quality.

Templeton Pek (TP) aren’t anything revolutionary, if Funeral for a Friend and Hundred Reasons were to have a child it would be them. One great feature about this band playing live is that they are abnormally heavy sounding for a three piece. TP are on tour for two main reasons, to make a name for themselves as they are quite new on the scene, and to promote their debut album ‘No Association’. Given the attitude that I saw generating in the queue, I thought that any support act would have been heckled off stage, due to the fact that they wouldn’t be MSI. But TP got an extremely warm welcome from the crowd. As I said, they aren’t creating life changing music, but it would surprise me if TP weren’t invited to festivals this year, or perhaps given a headline tour in Barfly size venues. (7.5/10)

Only having heard MSI through their albums (Frankenstein Girls…, You’ll Rebel to Anything and Tight) I didn’t know what to expect from their live shows. The recorded material is lively, erratic, random and many other things. As a live band, MSI sound like their recorded material on cocaine and speed. Not wasting any time, they play their most well known song, Shut Me Up, creating instant crowd adoration. Although I expect the band played it first to get it out of the way. A lot of tonight’s set list is composed of relatively unknown material from the forthcoming album ‘If’; the songs were released on myspace a few days before the tour commenced. Around the second song Jimmy Urine (lead singer) launches himself into the photo pit with photographers still present, flailing arms from the crowd make the venue look like a George A. Romero film. Jimmy is perhaps one of the most energetic front men I have ever witnessed live, leaping from amps, bass drums and a box (the only prop other than the candy cane mic stand). After cycling through new songs such as Animal and Lights Out, the band revert back to material from 2005’s You’ll Rebel To Anything album, Stupid MF and Straight To Video, two of the most popular songs of the night, Lyn-Z (bassist) even lunges herself into the crowd, floating in a state of popular bliss on the hands of eager fans.

While in the photo pit I was showered in plastic cups and glow-sticks, all the usual concert projectiles. But eventually people where throwing their backpacks and items of clothing on to the stage. Mr Urine even took it upon himself to wear some of the female ensembles for the remainder of the show. The final song, I Hate Jimmy Page got good reactions from all members of the crowd. I do however; use the words final song loosely. Once the band had departed the stage, the house light still remained down. Jimmy then donned the stage again with a cane, miming every single word to the Disney classic ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’, including Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dykes parts, dances and actions included.

If you were to ever venture to an MSI show and label their performance a lethargic, then it would surely be a sign that something is wrong with the world. (9/10)

MSI are:
Vocals-Jimmy Urine
Guitar-Steve Righ?
Bass-Lyn-Z
Drums-Kitty