LIVE REVIEW + PHOTOS: Creeper – Camp And Furnace, Liverpool – 28/03/2024

Yep, it’s another Creeper tour, alright! Spoiler alert: they’re still as fantastic as ever. Honestly, that shouldn’t even be up for debate anymore, seeing as a decade-long run of wins under has yielded spectacularly little to the contrary. Their position as a bastion of UK rock’s creativity and overblown exuberance remains unparalleled, especially after last year’s Sanguivore and its pivot into vampiric, leather-clad hard rock. And while the arenas do beckon now (as they have done for a while), a tour of small venues in out-the-way locations is very deliberate. At heart, Creeper are still the punks that blew everyone to pieces with The Callous Heart in 2015. Multiple metamorphoses and the inroads to the biggest stages in the land haven’t quelled the urges to return to the sweatboxes in which they cut their teeth. Sure, Camp And Furnace (or just Furnace, if you’re going by tour listings) is this run’s biggest stop, but it’s also a far cry from the scope they’re used to.

If anything, it certainly helps accommodate a pair of openers for whom adjacent goth spheres have been treating very kindly lately. Though that’s not to say that NAUT couldn’t hit those higher rungs if they wanted. There’s more of a classic rock energy to them in just how much bravado is on display, generally localised to frontman Gavin Laubscher. With his waist-length hair and penchant for a big ol’ vamping performance, you’d almost be left wondering which stoner-rockers’ cloud of smoke he shimmied out of, but trench-deep post-punk can—surprisingly enough—work with what he’s got. When each instrument is toned this formidably (without even the need for a drummer, FYI; the percussion is all programmed), the kick has a lot of entertainment value in a style typically against being this overt with it.

To chase that to its logical conclusion, look no further than Zetra and their tried-and-true injection of camp into goth-metal’s corpse-painted visage. You get it in droves, from their opening monologue and onstage acolyte for which the supposed reverence might be lost in a dim warehouse, to the (most likely plastic) chains draped on their equipment, and how their keyboardist’s dad-at-a-wedding swaying fully gets into the spirit. Ghost comparisons will undoubtedly be made, despite Zetra being a fair way off that just yet. Predominantly, the vibe feels more important than the songs themselves, as the power-riffs and ominous keys and more drum machine percussion cultivate the cold, intoxicating air that chipping a big hook from might be counterintuitive. The spectacle within it all is key, obviously. Even if it’d be nice for Zetra to discover something more within that—the single peek at the black-metal they visually emulate partway through suggests it could happen—you get the feeling they also accomplish everything they want just fine.

As for Creeper, they end up somewhere similar, except that has them firing on all cylinders, as always. If anything, they’re making new cylinders in real time to fire on just as much. It comes with the territory of exceeding starting blocks in as ostentatious a fashion as they have, to where you can practically feel the confines of the room being put through their paces just to hold all this. The Camp And Furnace was not built to hold bands like Creeper in their current state, though that only adds to the thrill. Theirs is a show that could be blown up exponentially—and no doubt will, before long—and to see how little of it is actually lost when scaled down this much really should set the standard. In their matching leather jackets and facepaint in a vampiric monochrome, they cast the profile of a glam-rockstar breed once extinct, and now exhumed exclusively for them.

Up front is chief Draculad William von Ghould, who has never been better, frankly. The Matt Berry speaking voice he’s picked up all of a sudden is…a choice, but it can help convey some regality of showmanship, if nothing else. He’s, of course, the blustering, buoyant head of the operation, with sunglasses and perfectly coiffed hair and the know-how for striking a pose like no one’s business. You thought your man from NAUT was vamping? This is vamping, with leg cocked and hand on hip that wears its golden-age superstar finery all over. Honestly, the stentorian burr and snarl on The Ballad Of Spook & Mercy justifies every bit of pageantry on its own.

But of course, the secret weapon is Hannah Greenwood, who’s mainly found generating the macabre atmosphere behind the keys, but takes her now-customary showstopping moment as lead with both hands. This time, it’s a one-two of Ghosts Over Calvary and Crickets—the former as a barnstorming rock anthem aired with relative rarity but totally warrants its axe-kicks and throat-grabbing instincts; the latter as the spare acoustic lament inspiring the most titanic of scream-alongs imaginable. It’s the kind of dynamic that’s utterly unique to Creeper, rolled out at every show but never getting old. Not even close. Greenwood is just that magnetic, honestly up there with von Ghould in pound-for-pound showmanship.

Really, for what’s demanded of them, you could apply a similar sentiment to any member of the band. When he’s not posted centre-stage for a bevy of wind-tunnel solos, Ian Miles engages in dueling guitar interplay with Lawrie Pattinson on Teenage Sacrifice. Meanwhile, drummer Jake Fogarty hits some notable high points throughout, elevated at the back of the stage on his well-deserved pedestal. The machine is oiled to the point of frictionlessness, but never in a corporate, calculated sense. You can tell there’s still a punk band blistering away in there, from how little Poison Pens or now-oldie Black Mass see any intensity or chugging firepower diminish.

But there’s also the feeling that, right now, the best of Creeper seems to have moved past that. The opening Cry To Heaven with its power-rock riff and ironclad demeanour feels like the perfect illustration, as does the replicated whip-crack of Lovers Led Astray or the new-romantic strut of Teenage Sacrifice. The bigger that Creeper have gone, the better they’ve ended up, and the more ambition they’ve been able to shoulder. When von Ghould and Greenwood are illuminated by stark spotlights for I Choose To Live’s piano opening, it’s the sort of scene that could be transplanted into a stadium setting with no change. When the full band chime in, the dynamic is electrifying.

If it feels like the superlatives are being piled on here…well, where have you been for the last decade? There’s a reason that Creeper are as revered as they are—they get praised to the moon and back, and never waste a drop of it. The number of bands at this stage who’d pin on one of their oldest songs in VCR to the end of the set at crowd request is remarkably small, but here’s Creeper, pulling it off like local risers catching word from their mates that’s that what they want. In truth, much of the encore feels like that; Misery becomes all but derailed thanks to demand to bring out Steve the tour bus driver. It’s taken in stride, though, and the song is still as beautifully poignant as ever. All part of the consummate myth-making that Creeper continue to live up to, particularly after their nine-minute opus Further Than Forever which could very well be their Welcome To The Black Parade before long. The fact that being on a level with My Chemical Romance is realistically in grasp should say it all, shouldn’t it? They’re just…the best.

Words by Luke Nuttall

Photos by Faye Roberts (Instagram)