News / / 19.09.13

Giant Drag

The Fleece, Bristol | September 18th

In preparation for tonight’s gig we find ourselves re-listening to Giant Drag’s 2005 debut Hearts and Unicorns and remembering why Annie Hardy was such an darling of the indie world to begin with. Their badass Cali grunge with bubble gum vocals sounds like, for want of a less contrived comparison, Dinosaur Jr on helium. We awaited the show with trepid anticipation. After seven years of silence, what would Annie Hardy’s bittersweet story of limited commercial success and personal struggles – illness, prescription drug addiction, rehab and legal battles – bring to the stage?

After filling the awkward silence of the venue with a short anecdote about either rape or group sex, it’s hard to remember which with there being so many, Annie announces her new band are session musicians she met for the first time when she arrived in the UK before the tour. “Who knew it would be so easy?”, she sarcastically quips in her now croaky, drunken Aunt voice. She’s clearly a little embarrassed and disappointed to be backed by the two hippest guys they could pull out of music college at the last minute, only for one of them to bear a striking resemblance to the guitarist from Coldplay. After her famously blue humour attracts a few giggles she bangs straight on with This Isn’t It which sounds great here, filling the venues corners and retaining that jangly charm.

Halfway through their set, it becomes clear that Annie Hardy is struggling slightly – as she always has – on stage. The hired hands leave the stage for a bit and Annie plonks about with backing tracks on a keyboard before playing a few acoustic tunes self-deprecatingly introduced as “exclusive shit”. After this, the band return to the stage competent versions of songs we all know and love interspersed with anecdotes about being done in the bum bum and drinking gallons of semen, before playing their most well known – Wicked Game and Kevin Is Gay -which both, sound… well… okay.

The thing is, we don’t want to come off sounding too negative here, there’s a warmth to the context of this fan-funded farewell tour, a bittersweet triumph of human spirit in the face of the industry’s bleak financial state. Annie Hardy, has also been through a lot, and everything about her reeks of bravery and confidence. Here’s a person who doesn’t give a fuck what we think, one who finds anal jokes funny and is happy to make sexist jokes about men not liking sewing (maybe she’s got a point). She may be irritating, and this incarnation of Giant Drag sound shambolic at their best, but tonight, we’re glad to see Annie Hardy back on stage once again.

– – – – – – – – – –

Words: Billy Black

CONNECT TO CRACK