Bloodhound Gang

The Bloodhound Gang are continually reported in the press as a scruffy US Frat band who shock with their outrageous stage antics and have little to recommend them otherwise. The V2000 programme did little to improve this image with it's description of the bands records as 'bargain-bin classics'. What these people fail to get across or perhaps realise, is that the Bloodhound Gang are a bloody good stage show! They were great.

Their mix of heavy rock and rap sounds was delivered with style. Their stage show was well prepared and very funny. I was expecting pathetic purile tomfoolery, but they actually made me laugh aloud, clap and cheer.

As Evil Jarad surfed the crowd, blew fire or made a 'roadie' pour beer down his throat the rest of the band played a mix of Bloodhound Gang songs and other classics: 'Say my Name', 'Forget about Dre'' etc..

Audience members came on stage in a challenge to surf the crowd or drink a case of Virgin coke for a hundred dollars. It was all pretty silly, but done in a way that was clearly tongue-in-cheek (apt phraseology).


The crowd went mad for all the messiness of it. Jimmy Pop entertained them with his eulogies on this and that, making some pretty shrewd comments in the thick of it all. He said that he would like to 'shove a Virgin cola up that blokes (Branson) arse' when commenting on the Virginness of it all at the festival. I must admit I agree with him.

He also managed to incite the crowd to racial hatred by getting them to sing 'We Hate the French' after winding them up about England and an impromptu performance of 'Engerland, Engerland, Engerland' by the crowd. This skill to turn ideas on their head and go with it sets the Bloodhound Gang apart from their rivals. The crowd looked ridiculous, not the band.

As they mixed other songs in to their biggest hit here to date, 'The Bad Touch', they enthralled the crowd. On seeing the 'Barenaked Ladies' the following day I pondered how that band, acclaimed as 'Canada's finest' in the V2000 programme, actually entertained me less than the Bloodhound Gang the day before.

Yes, the lyrics are purile and weak in comparison to the Barenaked Ladies, but for quick wit, pithy performances of others work and a damn good laugh I would go and see the Bloodhound Gang first any day.

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