Topper, a Gospel, the best Swedish live band at the moment

Some weeks ago I went to a show that became impossble to write a review about. Im not that happy little girl (that hates Robbie Williams) that wen´t to see them Topper as in their song. More of a missarable son of a bitch or something. I knew that I was in it for a treat when they announced that there would be guest artists onstage like the former Sludge Nation/Dear Majesty singer Jälevik and more.
On the other hand, why did they invite guest singers when they are such a good band as they are? Questions, questions, well I might would get some answers if I went there.
Anyway they were on at the Snövits club Probation at Södermalm in Stockholm. Together with Stiffy Jones. But before I write about that I have tell the story from the beginning.


Let´s back the tape to Januari this year. To predict the future I claimed that it would be an interessting year when all the good bands would release a record. So did many of them do and there are still some more weeks left for those who didn´t. But I know that Topper are sceduled release their next full lenght album next year. But we might get a single now*.

This year started with a concert that I instantly felt this was something extra, Topper at Snövit Jan 26. Still I find it the best gig the whole year, still ten month later. Still I get shivers from looking on the footage from my hand held camcorder from that event. Its energy, the energy that Topper is all about. They are not the most wild thing you seen, not the most crazy you can run into. But there are some punk rock energy in it that is hard to explain.

So I went there this October friday without any illutions of ever feel close to any divinity that Topper have to top to top themself at the same place. A couple of new songs (is that really nessecary?) was to be expected and a couple of other guys ocationally onstage. It was with mixed feelings I did go there. Could they do anything than fail?

The other band went onstage, Stiffy Jones, and was quite OK, but sorry guys I was waiting for Topper that night. I´ll give you a real chance another day. The same night was the good band Pastoratet on a Stockholm visit at Broder Tuck as well the Swedish Fotball World Cup game against Austria on in the same City. Not only 60 000 spectators at Friends Arena but the whole nation glued at the TV sets. A bad day for a gig. But I didn´t care, I was curious for whatever Topper would come up with. Some clever guy that been helping out as a band driver as well as tour manager for Topper as well as Ligisterna, aka Alph, made up a logistic plan to manage to see Topper and the be just in time for Pastoratet.
If there was a dramatic Fotball game on I didn´t care, I was in for some Topper.

And when they finally entered the stage, not as rock stars but as bunch of old men still in they dayjob clothes, litterary changing their clothes onstage into their Topper uniform, the black Topper shirts. Then it was just some minutes left for the mayhem to break loose.

The Singer Jocke started with some ranting adressed to Swedish filmaker Lukas Moodysson that had premiere with his punk film (We Are The Best) the same night, ”You haven´t done it for real, we have”. Then the band burst into Punkrock revival. Where he pretty much waste all his voice, then it was a hissing as screaming Jocke that still tried to scream the little voice there was left out of his body. After first number it was bowling time from the old single tune from the year 2000, ”Take the Skinheads & Homeboys Bowling”, that was the moment when my embarkment start to burst. Then there was no hiding, then it was an open sore that never seamed to heal. The crowd started to move their feet ´till it went bananas. Little by little the barriere between the crowd and the band vanished. The guest artist was a part of it. If I ever was doubtful about them, I backed off. It was a stroke of genius. Mr Jälevik seems to enjoy every minute of it, while singing a Buzzcock tune with a growling voice.

The Trobbing bass guitar with its steady boom, boom boom, was the ground where their power came from. Matched with the hard drumbeating, drums that seems like taking more hard hits than any punchdrunk old boxer. The Steve Jonesy guitar licks and powercords worked out of an eager to be the best band there is, was taking the band further than mediocrazy. On top of it, the angry, ranting singing that comes from a madman singer that seems to be everywhere and nowhere at once, both in mind and in in the physical space, that was Topper, that is Topper!

It is quite alot of Clash, Stiff Little Fingers and Sex Pistols but enough of Jocke to make them a band on their own.
I´ve seen great international Punk Rock stars the last two years, very few would put them Topper behind themself in my toplist. Infact it is only Rancid and Street Dogs that can compeate. Stiff Little Fingers, Social Distortion, Iggy and The Stooges, Bad Religion,Dropkick Murphys and Turbonegro didn´t made me go bananas like I did at Snövit, for the second time this year. Even the Swedish pride of Asta Kask and Alonzo Fas 3 can´t match Topper a night like this.
Despite the rather dull cellar club sound that is standard at Stockholms cellar punk clubs, despite that there was no voice left in the singer, despite the whole country was watching football they managed to change the odds. They were fighting the fight any good band would do, fighting and winning. They didn´t seem to worry too much about it. The tapping of drumsticks 1,2,3,4 and the next tune is on and the band carries on.

I was no more a bloke with a blog that might write a review about it. I was a blob, an amoeba that lost every aspec of...whatever I lost. Dignity I lost a long time ago in a Galaxy far far away.

”Of She goes”, cries the pogoing crowd together with the guest singer Eas Tiljander. Then ”Robbie Dies” at least as everyone went on chanting that together like we never done anything else as the end of the ”Off she goes” goes. Imagine Topper and the crowd do the same at Hammersmiths Odeon!

At the end of their set the voice of the main singer was finished, so I an a few blokes grabed the microphones and gave him a hand (voice). We declare that ”we live in the Suburbs, 7 days a week”. The thin line between the band and the crowd was then diminished as it is supposed to be when punk comes true. I think I understand how religion once came into the life of the cavemen. It must been just like a night like this. So I don´t write a review, I write a gospel.


To talk about entrance fees such a night feels puny but whatever I did pay it was way too cheap.





Pastoratet

But the night didn´t ended there.

Pastoratet (the Pastorate) is a band from the towns of Tibro and Skövde in the Vastergötland province, (the real Gotaland, not like it is in that HBO fantasy fiction TV series ”Vikings). And the gig was held at Broder Tuck in the same area. We, Ligisterna and I went to see them. And we were pretty much the ones that did. I felt a bit bad about it because how could they even be a fraction of as good as Topper that night? And in that basement club Dislocated with its bad sound. However, they did. Actually they did have a rather good, thick and heavy sound. And singer of Pastoratet Goran´s clear and soft voice mixed with some screaming did cut throught the sound barrier that is the sound of the band. Their songs felt like home and often the lyrics is a bit like being in a domestic argument. Afterwards I tried to find out who the song ”Stick din lilla diva” was about. But I rather should try to prove Einstein wrong instead, because there was no answer to get.

That the band even got my attention after Topper is remarcable, that they even got me going as well is astonishing. That good was their effort to get us, the few that was in the crowd going. And we got it going. I hope that they will come back soon, another time, when there is no punk film premiere, no fotball game and no Topper mayhem at the same time. But Im very pleased I gave them a chance because they perfected an alredy perfect gig night. I went home almost stonedeaf for two days. But that it was worth.

Worth the Money? Yes.

Tonight Topper go on the Snövit stage for the third time 2013, I will see them for the forth time this year, will they still go for that magic moments or will they not.

Topper will release a single in the end of December 2013 and the album 2014.