Split Dogs Billy Bootleggers Nottingham 28.2.25

Funny what a difference a week or so can make. Back then, I was trying to get Black Sabbath tickets along with 140 thousand others with ticket prices going into the thousands. Even if I had got a ticket, I would have been probably a mile away looking at a giant screen.

So onto Friday night and I find myself in somewhere very different. I’m in Nottingham’s Billy Bootleggers pub catching a bill of four bands looking to keep playing live and creating new music and with differing expectations of whatever success means nowadays. It’s a great venue with an upstairs for bands (once you’ve found the door)  and a downstairs pub, again with a section for bands. It’s a bit grungy.  The stage is roughly the same height as the floor and there’s no dressing room and there’s no separation between the band and the audience. The décor is neon graffiti so all in all it’s pretty old school. You also use the venue’s back line and get a rudimentary sound check just before you play.

The bands are all at that stage where they set themselves up, play their hearts out then dismantle the equipment. Then it’s off to run the merch stalls before no doubt staying in the cheapest place possible before cramming themselves into a car/hired van and with whatever instruments they brought to go to the next gig.

Four bands on tonight but I missed the first and caught half of Chesterfield’s W.O.R.M. Well drilled and professional, they run through about what seemed like 1000 songs often with no break. The sheer volume of songs wore me out, to be honest. Next up, Phat Problem looked interesting and coincidentally matched the club’s decor. The band wears dayglo face paint with matching dayglo strings and bedecked guitars. They also had some samples triggered by the drummer and a bassist with five strings, which is always a serious sign. They had the first of the moshers and gave a compelling well balanced and paced set of speed punk and more slow-paced chuggers. My heart went out to the guitarist who was clearly unhappy and struggling with this guitar tuner but to be honest the dissonance kind of helped the overall sound. The singer on the last song launched herself off the stage into the audience, scattering moshers like bowling pins!

And so on to the main event. It’s Split Dogs first headline tour promoting their already acclaimed second album Here To Destroy along with rave live reviews (including ours here). So how would they do?

It’s fair to say they delivered in spades. With the sound at brain-melting volume complete with troublesome feedback mike squall Split Dogs launched into their set. The band featuring Mil on guitar, vocals and double denim, Suez – bass and Chris Huggall – drums are tight and heavy, providing the sonic ammunition, but the obvious focal point is singer Harry. Wearing a leotard, tights, heels, and fringed leather jacket, they fill the stage with their larger-than-life persona and amazing vocals. Harry really does come across aurally and visually like a combination of a sassy punk Tina Turner, Lemmy and Bon Scott. They are a natural performer in that it’s seemingly effortless the way they channel the music and singing into how thyey move on stage. The crowd reacts and it’s just a mental mosh pit in front of the stage with bodies being flung all over the place from start to finish.

With the volume set to max and the temperature quickly rising, subtleties in the songs tend to tend to disappear, but stand outs were the newer rockier ones like And What?, Lafayette and Monster Truck (I was tempted to put my fingers in my jean loops and do the classic seventies biker dance!) and older ones like Prison Bitch and Punch Drunk.

Chris’s drums start to fall apart as the band does the last two songs, and they exit virtually straight to the merch store before no doubt packing up and getting maybe a drink and something to eat before some sleep and doing it all again the next day. But that’s rock’n’roll and it’s a long way to the top if you want to rock’n’roll as someone once said!😊  

You think that might be it wouldn’t you but noah! Exiting, I find a rockabilly band playing in the downstairs bar with a double bass and Gretsch. Oh my God they are freaking brilliant playing some classic old style rockabilly tunes while there’s a few people in 50’s fashion doing a bit of dancing. What a fantastic way to round the night off.

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