Gibby Haynes is the wild-eyed crazy man who used to front the Butthole Surfers back in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, there was none weirder or more out there than the Texan psychedelic punks – and even Ice-T was then prepared to step back and acknowledge their place in the pantheon of musical barbarians.
Despite a recent avalanche of album re-issues, a new live disc and a forthcoming documentary film, the Butthole Surfers effectively came to an end 25 years ago. However, not being one to settle down and integrate into mainstream society, Haynes is presently back on the road with a group of US high school-aged boys and girls, who play under the name of the Scott Thunes Institute for Musical Excellence. Think of the 2003 film School of Rock with Haynes taking the role of Jack Black and the assembled musicians playing a set of predominantly Butthole Surfers’ tunes. The show may not include smoke bombs, over excitable strobe lights, a naked dancer called TaDa the Shit Lady and copious amounts of LSD, but it’s still not exactly what anyone might term comfortable family-friendly entertainment either.
With Uncle Gibby standing to one side of the stage and the ever-changing roster of teenage musicians taking up the rest of the space, the band kicked off their performance by launching into “The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey’s Grave” with Haynes noting “There’s a time for drugs – which is apparently right now for some of you!” before taking up the howling weirdness of “Jimi”. Two drum kits pounded out the primal groove, as the young people let loose and Gibby sipped on his bottle of beer while wearing his Lidl Marketplace cap, smiling with a look of total pride and satisfaction.
Time leaves no-one unscathed, especially when they’ve consumed as much acid as Gibby. So, a lyric book was perched on a music stand in front of the vocalist throughout the performance and he had to occasionally be reminded of the order that tunes were played by his younger confederates. He had also managed to blow up his famously Gibbytronix vocal effects box the night before in London, explaining “I’m in the wheelchair of rock’n’roll without my equipment”. But apart from a slightly truncated “Sweat Loaf”, the show certainly lived up to expectations. There was even time for a couple of cover versions amongst the craziness, with Sugarloaf’s “Green Eyed Lady” and Kenny Rogers’ “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)” providing a bit of light relief in between the likes of “Cherub” and “Cough Syrup”.
The show finished with a tsunami of noise and lunacy, as the band blasted out “Graveyard”, sending the amps into over-drive. However, while it seemed that Gibby was more than happy to go on longer, the band wondered off-stage in some confusion, as it seemed that the show was fast approaching curfew time. Nevertheless, in a time when the live Butthole Surfers’ experience is something that can only be sampled on film, it was a fine evening of entertaining rock’n’roll nostalgia for the assembled ageing punks and hippies.
