Live: Heck at Rough Trade

Heck - Instructions

The afternoon after the night before. Current Nottingham hardcore darlings took to the stage in Rough Trade to play an intimate free gig.

The extra show followed their album launch party in Rescue Rooms, a show that was seven years in the making. When the guys announced on stage that they were doing a signing they fessed up to not really being the kind of band that sit behind a desk signing stuff and would rather play to say thanks to the city that have come along with them on the journey to this point.

Hungover and bleary from the after party, Heck did not look at their finest when they took to the stage. But once they got going you wouldn't have known as the guys drew on their seemingly endless pot of energy to get rowdy in among the crowd as per usual.

The setlist was largely classics from the back catalogue and started with the singalong pirate shanty Powerboat Disaster. Frontman Matt pointed out they were sticking to the easier tracks to play because of their delicate heads but playing tracks that you haven't played for a few years present their own challenges.

Still the main thing about a Heck gig has always been the spectacle and there was plenty of it. Swinging from rafters, building make shift stages out of furniture and Matt disappearing  into the restaurant for a bit to play frantically next to punters who had just popped in for a bulgar wheat salad.

But the overwhelming sense from the short set was the feeling of the band's genuine gratitude for their fans. Heck made everyone in the room feel like a member of the band and at the end most of them were on stage helping out with the drumming. In that sense Heck have emerged as the poster children of the Nottingham scene. A proxy for the whole city's ethos.

Heck played an in-store at Rough Trade Nottingham on Saturday 12 March 2016.

Heck website