Fu Manchu
Hailing from sunny California Fu Manchu are one of the few stoner rock bands that have stood the test of time. We went along to the last night of their UK tour to see if they can still deliver a good show.
The Nexus, Southampton is one of south coasts smaller venues, it holds 400 people and by the time Fu Manchu stepped on to the tiny stage the place was busting at the seams. The hot, sticky, smelly confinements of The Nexus seem like the perfect place to watch the Fu. With every word that comes out of front man Scott Hill's mouth the crowd seemed to get more and more sucked in. Slick guitar riffs and pounding drum lines boom out of the speakers and fill the room. The band effortlessly reverted from their old style fuzzy guitars to the cleaner guitar work found on the likes on 'King Of The Road'.
When the intro to 'We Must Obey' was played the crowd erupted into a frenzy. I'm not sure who was enjoying the music more, the crowd or Hill. He was constantly leaping off the stage and landing on the arms of his adoring fans before crowd surfing over the whole crowd and back to his rightful place of centre stage. It seemed whenever the crowd was going wild he had to go wild with them.
After wowing the crowd for an hour the band left the stage and received deafening cheers. It wasn't long before they were back "We've got time for one more song" Hill said, which yet again set the crowd into a frenzy as the opening bars of 'Start The Machine' rung out.
Just watching the sheer joy and excitement people got from watching Fu Manchu puts me in mind of the 70s, not that I was around to see the 70s, but the energy and atmosphere in the room is what I imagine shows from that era to have been like. I now understand why Fu Manchu are top of their game and I hope it isn't another 5 years before they're back on UK soil.