Date:

Sat, 2008/04/05

Venue:

Electrowerkz

After 27 years of trail blazing the Power Electronics genre, Whitehouse are finally calling it a day - and Dom Simpson brings us this report on their final tour...

Whitehouse are not a subtle bunch. The venue they are playing in, Electrowerkz, with its underground bunker feel and maze of tunnels, has TVs hoisted everywhere showing quasi-pornographic images from the Internet, not to mention the word ‘JIHAD’ in huge letters. It fits the confrontational approach of a band who’ve been going since 1980 (when the average age of the band members was fourteen), and have been one of the progenitors of the ‘power electronics’ genre - along with Japanese noise nutter Merzbow and the ubiquitous Throbbing Gristle.

The unhinged goth-punk gentlemen standing next to me is going ballistic.

It’s fair to say that tonight’s gig is unlikely to feature a cameo from Belle & Sebastian. The band (William Bennett and Philip Best) make their grand entrance to a barrage of excruciatingly loud industrial noise, then take it in turns to serenade the audience with distorted, virtually unintelligible rantings. Their lyrical content has frequently run the gamut of murderers and rapists, though on their last album Racket there were some more socially conscious lyrics such as on the song ‘Dumping More Fu*king Rubbish’, aired here tonight. This being a Whitehouse gig, though, we are treated to the lovely ‘Wriggle Like A Fu*king Eel’, just to show they haven’t mellowed in their old age. The unhinged goth-punk gentlemen standing next to me is going ballistic. As this is to be the final tour by the band before they go their separate ways, there’s something dramatic about the ending, in which the two stand in messianic poses at the front of the stage, their arms reached out to the applauding audience. Like them or hate them, it’s a triumphant ending to twenty-five years of one of the UK’s most controversial bands. Adios, gentlemen.

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