The first gig of the new decade was the wonderful Sex Patels at the Brudenell. With much of Leeds snowed under it was great to see a decent crowd come out for them, including the Chumbawambas who were there in force. In fact, the whole evening felt like a New Years Eve party we’d gatecrashed.

Chumba’s Norbert Nobacon MC’d the night and seems to have taken up growling rather than singing. His stand up comedy bits between songs were, as you’d expect, very entertaining.

It’s been 2 years since I last saw the Sex Patels who did their usual set of classic punk tracks, to an eastern sitar drenched drone with ‘Up Town Top Rankin’ and ‘Ghost Town’ really getting the crowd going. It was announced that tonight would be the last time ‘Jacqui Patel’ would play with the band – a real shame as her vocal stylings really make it all work. An LP of Tom Waits covers in the offing sounds good though. An unexpected guest on stage was ‘Capt Jack’ – a bottle of booze that went round the band but took a real liking to lead singer’ Outlaw Patel’ who couldn’t stand up by the end!

The band (minus Capt Jack) came back for a second set as ‘The Rats’ – a hard edge funk outfit who did a couple of soul numbers with ‘Jacqui’ (It was her birthday after all) and then had a rapper frontman, whipping the crowd up about the next days ‘Clash of the titans’ – Leeds Vs Man Utd in the FA cup (surely an easy win for Man U – ho ho!).

A great way to see in the new year!

Bob the Chiropodist