GIG REVIEW: Slackrr + The Unnamed @ The Doll at the Black Bull, Gateshead, Friday, 28 March 2025
Slackrr are a pop-punk trio from Southampton who have been together about eight years, and are building a growing reputation in a packed scene.
They’ve got three albums under their belt, with a fourth not far away, and feel like one of those bands who could cross into the mainstream given a bit of luck.
Their music has been used on a PlayStation game, they’ve received prime-time airplay on Kerrang! Radio, and enjoyed coverage from Rock Sound magazine and BBC Radio One.
They’ve also featured at some of the biggest festivals around, including Isle of Wight and Rebellion (where they played on the Empress stage in 2023, the Casbah last year, with a third appearance during this time round).
Like any modern band they’re social media savvy, but don’t get the impressionn they’re looking for a quick route to fame; this is a band which is doing the hard yards the old-fashioned way.
This gig is at a punk pub 325 miles from home, and it’s part of a 14-date tour which frontman Scotty began in a wheelchair after having surgery for a perforated hernia.
He was only last week given the all-clear to perform on his own two feet again, though it’s understandable that he’s taking it a little easier than usual.
The show here saw the three-piece – Scotty on guitar and vocals, Cait on bass/backing vocals and Joe on drums – embark on a whistlestop set mostly drawn from their last two albums – 2022’s A Place That Feels Like Home and 2023’s Set The Night On Fire – as well as offering a glimpse of the upcoming one.
They’re best described as a pop-punk band, but there’s elements of so much more in their sound, a dash of skatepunk, a soupcon of emo, a touch of post-hardcore.
What is clear is that the band are having a blast, and will give it their all for however many people turn out to see them, whether it’s 20 or 2,000.
They’ve been to the Bull before, once in that strange between-lockdowns period when they had to play in a different room to the audience and again last year for the tribute to sadly-missed STP Records supremo Stu Taylor (reviewed here).
So the locals are familiar with their material, and they’ve got some new songs to serve up, including latest single Never Forget, and previous single Over & Over.
Opening with Reflections, one of the standouts on their most recent album, highlights of their hour-long set include The Current (the PlayStation song), and Lie To Me.
They end with Playing With Fire, whose catchy chorus has the whole crowd joining in. It’s an exultant end to a great show, and I’m sure it won’t be the last time Slackrr venture to this little home away from home.
One of the best things about the punk scene in the North East, and here at the Bull in particular, is that bands watch each other’s sets, and that was the case tonight as local band The Unnamed open the evening’s entertainment.
They’re a new band fronted by Denni of Tyneside’s Motorhead soundalike trio The Undaclass, so new in fact that this is their first show. They’re a four-piece completed by Fosta on guitar, Kurt on bass and Rich on drums.
They hammer through a half-hour set of high tempo garage-punk with few signs of nerves, and although no one knows the songs, they’re well received. I look forward to seeing them again and getting to know their set.
