Live Review : Gama Bomb + Raised By Owls @ Rebellion, Manchester on April 20th 2025

Fittingly for Easter Sunday, Jesus has decided to make his long-anticipated return at tonight’s show. Gama Bomb vocalist, Philly Byrne, deadpans with surprise “Oh you're back, you should see what's being said about you and also what they are doing in your name and by the way after the show can we have a quick word about what's happening to kiddies in Ireland”. However, when “Jesus” gets on stage to dry-hump Philly during ‘Give Me Leather’ it becomes clear that he is a costumed imposter as opposed to the actual second coming. What it does show, though, is the sense of fun around this evening's proceedings. There is a general air of irreverence, as Sam from openers Raised by Owls eloquently puts it, metal is just angry panto. 

There is a ludicrously early start, but this is not down to celebrations of the real Jesus Christ's return from the dead. The Manchester punk festival is in full swing, and a bevy of underachieving cover bands will take over Rebellion from 10 PM, accompanied by a horde of punks who have already managed to almost drink the venue dry in the preceding two nights. Sam, still of Raised by Owls seems gobsmacked that so many people have turned up at 6.45 pm to witness self-styled “Awful Music for Awful People”. The place is packed because Raised by Owls manage to marry self-knowing satire with musical excellence and just the right dollop of stupidity. “Comic” metal can become awfully “nod nod wink wink, do you get the irony”. But not here, Raised by Owls are not laughing at us, they are laughing with us. They love death and black metal’s as much as we do and manage to create a communal atmosphere by allowing us to collectively laugh at their absurdities.

Mr Blobby turns up for ‘Strictly come Danzig’ (a song allegedly about being pulled by Glenn Danzig at a Goth Club). He welds around two double-ended dildo’s obviously confusing the hell out of a few punters diligently reserving their front of stage position for Gama Bomb. However, the rest of the melee of bodies up front are there for Raised by Owls and gleefully revel in the utter absurdness of the whole thing. A three-song “game show” is apparently what happens when you give a Grindcore band forty minutes and elicits even more brazen audience participation as the band unitarily pick out the best headbangers, death growlers and Barney Greenway dancers from the crowd. However, the biggest reaction is one of disappointment when Sam reveals that his now iconized mother is not with them. A comically regretful Sam shakes his head and retorts, “We chip away at this band for ten years and then my mum overtakes us and becomes a minor internet celebrity”.

Raised by Owls are a damn fine death metal band (don’t say it too loudly as it will spoil the illusion) that have decided that the fun is to be had in leaning into the ludicrous nature of our music. They are affable, playful and in possession of a chronically deranged imagination. ‘The Dark and Twisted Realm in which Fred Durst Resides’ is a Black Metal ode to the bizarre posturing of the Limp Bizkit frontman and sees the appearance of the “nookie monster”, a cookie monster onesie respledent in white t-shirt and backward red cap. The latter fashion faux pas is then adopted by all as they career into a final cover of Limp Bizkit’s ‘Break Stuff’. Mischievous, flippant and deliciously farcical, it crowns a set that manifests the joy in blatant but knowing stupidity. Acres and acres of fun.

Raised by Owls’ demonic pantomime has become such a draw that there is an obvious changing of the guards in the audience department as the stage is set for the Irish thrash veterans, Gama Bomb. The Mancunian metal fraternity retire to the beer garden, with the pit now inhabited by hordes of thrash kids keen to rush round in circles and fling themselves off the stage. It feels rather bizarre that a band that were at the heart of thrash’s noughties revival are now considered torchbearers for the entire scene. By never swerving in their allegiance to the church of thrash, they have become icons of in the very music they were iconizing.

This evening they are a riot of minimalistic fun. The songs are simple, but that’s the point. They create pearls of brief molten gold, peppered with driving riffs and self-aware lyrics. Philly Byrne regularly seems to be on the verge of losing the plot, whether it be bantering with the aforementioned Jesus imposter or wandering off into verbal streams of consciousness that lead him into cul-de-sacs of soliloquies. But he manages to pull it back from the brink each and every time, deftly hauling us into the next track. It is obvious that Gama Bomb has now become for its members a glorious distraction from the mundane nature of real  life. This is never going to be their full-time job but they have amassed enough of a following to nip across the Irish Sea and fill Rebellion.

They tear through the set, the velocity ramming up as they dispense sub-three-minute masterpiece after sub-three-minute masterpiece. They crash around the timeline, giving us unpronounceable new track ‘Necronomicon Automaton’  as well as exhuming golden oldies ‘Zombie Blood Nightmare’ and ‘Three Witches’. ‘Bring Out the Monster’ sees the appearance of their mascot Snowy 'The Gamabombinable Snowman' who proceeds to menace the hell out of the first three rows. But there are punks outside desperate to throw themselves around to Slipknot and NOFX cover bands, so a final furlong beckons. ‘Miami Supercops’ whisks us all away to sunny climbs and then their terrific cover of The Pogues’ ‘If I should Fall From Grace with God’ shows that us metallers can out punk the punks as the pit becomes a unified interlinked circle of riverdancing bodies.

There is no hierarchical bullshit with Gama Bomb. They are a band of the people giving the people what they want. They are thrash fanatics like everyone else crowded into Rebellion. It just so happens they have fallen into being in a band, but there are no “them and us” divides. Philly spends a good proportion of his time on the floor, allowing the pit to race around him, whilst Joe McGuigan points out most of Evile are in the building and pleads with them to make a new album. Put simply, Gama Bomb are having as much fun as the people watching them, and this creates a boisterous, euphoric atmosphere that makes Rebellion the only place to spend Easter Sunday evening.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Gama Bomb + Raised By Owls