Alkaline Trio
Underworld, London
25/01/10

With as many albums, singles and side projects to rival fellow punk-a-likes Green Day, it’s perhaps unexpected that Alkaline Trio are playing in a venue as um, cosy as the Underworld in Camden. However, as it’s the only show they seem to have in the UK this year, it’s certainly going to be a special one. As they begin with ‘This Addiction’, lead single from the new album of the same name, it’s proven to be a wise choice as the tightly packed crowd flail around wildly until there’s elbows in eye sockets.

Let’s travel back to 2001, and ‘Stupid Kid’ is giving angsty teenage kids something to scrawl in the back of their math(s) book. This was the band’s first charting song in the UK, and The Fly would put good money on the majority of tonight’s crowd being those disaffected teenagers from nearly a decade ago. All of that adolescent torment seems so frivolous in hindsight, so all that’s left is the immense delight that their 13 year-old selves felt when they first heard this two and a half minute punk-pop masterpiece.

There’s a wide range of material played from their seven albums tonight; they’ve stretched three chords a hell of a long way. There’s ‘Sadie’ ‘Time To Waste’ and ‘Private Eye’, the latter dedicated by frontman Matt Skiba to N.W.A.’s late Eazy E. And finally, after one man requesting it for half the show, they play last song ‘Radio’, but not before Skiba lets slip that they’re back for a full tour over here in May. It’s only three chords, but it’s amazing.

Mike Doherty