Unfortunately on this, my first gig back of the year, logistics meant that I didn’t make it to the Tivoli in time for tonight’s first support Severenth. Seems a shame, as friends who live a little nearer and arrived a little earlier told me they were pretty good. They were described to me as modern doomy rock with a bit of a bounce. A bit like Killswitch Engage apparently, and the vocals were very good when not shouted. Oh well, hopefully I’ll catch them again at some point.

Next band Lullaby For A Unicorn I kind of hope I don’t have to catch again if I’m brutally honest. Whilst competent enough, they were really not my cup of tea. A bit of quickly-applied face paint doesn’t really make up for a lack of imagination. They seemed like nice guys, and maybe would have gone down better in a smaller more intimate setting, but the music wasn’t to my taste at all, the vocals sounded like they were being shouted underwater and the whole thing just seemed very flat. Poor Unicorn. If this was his lullaby I bet he had nightmares afterwards.

Evil Scarecrow have had a bit of a line-up change since last time I saw them. Brother Pain has, we find out at the end of the set, gone to Antantarctica in his sandals. We now have Count Gravediga instead. With umlauts on the i, but I don’t know how to type them in this font! He is a worthy replacement, and musically the loss of the metal monk is not a disaster. The princess corpse “Princess Luxury” who used to play keyboards has also gone back to her grave, and been replaced by backing tapes as no Alice Babylon is to be found. Again not a major difference to the overall sound although maybe a bit of a minus visually. Hey ho, life and the Scarecrow show must go on.

What hasn’t changed is the use of props and extras to transform the show from your common-or-garden gig into a theatrical experience. I’ll make a confession here, I own a couple of Evil Scarecrow albums but I rarely listen to them. This is because musically they are a fairly typical thrash metal band, but their strength is definitely in their live show. A song that is generic if well-performed on record is transformed on stage. Frontman Dr Hell’s wicked sense of humour and banter with the crowd mean that even on a quiet Thursday in Wales watching Evil Scarecrow is an Experience. With a capital E!

There is a giant inflatable karate student during the song about a dojo, the last year single ‘Master Of The Dojo’. There are robots in the backdrop during ‘Robotron’, spacemen and aliens in ‘Space Dementia’, monster drum-beating Vikings during ‘Skol’ and of course the one and only Crabulon during the song of the same name. The lyrics, if you listen carefully, are shock-rock horror humour, and the whole show is like the gig equivalent of a 1950s comic book. Kitsch rules. The crowd, though sparse, are enthusiastic and join in with gusto. In return, we get an off the cuff jam about VHS and Asda. You kind of had to be there!

And that’s the point with Evil Scarecrow really. You kind of have to be there. Although alike, no two shows are the same and in the words of the late great Graham Chapman there is a tendency for it all to get very silly. The band’s delivery is spot-on no matter how daft things get though, and I think that’s their other strength. The musicianship, despite the theatrics, is superb, the songs are well-crafted and the whole thing just puts a massive smile on my face. As I scuttle off back to real life I have just one thing left to say – EGGS! Yes, I think you really DID need to be there!