Live review: Speed, Electric Bristol

A word of advice for the uninitiated: that wasp-like hum you hear between songs during a Speed show is not booing. In fairness, without context it sounds like booing. Somewhere along the line, the fans started chorusing “SPEEEEEEED!” in the lowest pitch they can, and it’s now a part of their mythology.

“It’s been four years of hearing this and I really feel the love,” says their permanently chipper vocalist Jem Siow, “but there are still people online being like ‘Why are they getting fucking booed?’”

After all, it wouldn’t stack up against the Australian mob’s exponentially soaring profile. They’re of the size where, at the right sort of gig, their hoodies become ubiquitous items. Even Kourtney Kardashian has one. They’re two-stepping along the line between underground heroes and future mainstream-baiters, all with just one album to their name. Everyone wants to join their gang called Speed.

Jem is gassed about anything to do with hardcore, including this tour package. It kicks off with a 15-minute blast of bullish aggression from straight-edge Brighton bruisers Dambuster, immediately contrasted by the cold, dystopian tones of Bodyweb, who skulk along the line between menace and swagger and demonstrate there’s good reason why they’ve started to collect support slots like Pokémon cards.

It’s Whispers’ turn on stage that truly feels like its own event. As the grandiose, aggressive chords of opener Bangkok Evilcore flare into life, the pitters are summoned, beers are lobbed, and limbs slice the air. There’s another flurry of movement when Jem appears for a quick warm-up on A Choice To Survive – “GET THE FUCK UP!” - and when he talks, you damn well listen. Even when it’s just them, Whispers’ metallic, muscular grooves hit the crowd’s ears like catnip, and the level of frenzy when the hulking riffs of closer Yom-Ma-Lok are unleashed suggest there’s a spark underneath them waiting to turn into a fire.

The rooms are bigger – “There’s a fucking lot of people here bro! I can’t believe this is a concert!” is Jem’s endearing verdict – but Speed’s thirst for chaos is unchanging.

“I don’t give a fuck about this barrier! Crowd surf to the front!”

For all the bare-knuckled power of AIN’T MY GAME’s convulsing riffs and DON’T NEED’s snaking basslines, their greater mission is to make the blood in your veins rush faster, not just with adrenaline, but with life. Never is this brutishness for brutishness’ sake. In fact, the prevailing feeling is joy, and every hook is like a battle cry. Try not to punch the air when REAL LIFE LOVE hits, for example, or tug your shirt when the refrain of NO LOVE BUT FOR OUR OWN drops.

Theirs is the sort of shining, infectious joy only real hardcore lifers would have. It’s their home, and within that, Jem is conscious of emphasising the sanctuary it gave to him.

“I came into hardcore feeling like a freak. I had a different part of me that didn’t connect with anyone else,” he says, nodding to his East Asian background, and the feeling of otherness coming “as a straight Chinese guy who plays the flute.”

This is a space where difference is celebrated, perhaps most of all when he produces said flute for the monumental anthem THE FIRST TEST. It’s certainly a marker of success not only to have a song this beloved in your scene so early on, to have people sing along not to a riff, but to a flute solo (“Whooo whoo WHOOOO whooo!”). Yes, it’s as hilarious as it sounds.

If ever you need either a high-intensity workout that’s more fun than the gym or something to shock you out of the doldrums, a Speed show is the place to be. As the lights come on, the punters head either for an ever-lengthening merch queue, or the way out. On their way down the stairs, the wasp-like noise returns. “SPEEEEED…”

Speed are on tour in the UK until April 22.

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