The Creepshow at The White Rabbit

There's now five in The Creepshow (Photo : Creepshow Facebook page)

I couldn't quite believe it when I heard that Canadian psychobilly rockers The Creepshow were going to play at The White Rabbit at the bus station in Plymouth. I still bought a ticket and went along though and - yup - it was them alright, freshly bussed in from Newcastle no less (a mere hop, skip and jump for these hard touring, hot diggeddy-dawgs), complete with a new guitarist and a sparkly new lead singer.

Kenda Legaspi is only little but she belts out the choons and ably fills the boots of Sarah "Sin" Blackwood. The extra guitarist allows Kenda to concentrate on vocals, although she did a great job of  The Garden, and I don't usually like the slow ones (but this one's really good) We also saw her joining us in the mosh pit! This was on purpose, I should add. She clearly lurves to rock out but needed a helping hand to get back on stage again - no, really. On the other hand, being short she could stand upright on Sickboy's double bass without the low headroom of The White Rabbit bothering her. Later she was even on the speaker stack. Top woman - literally.

It was a wild night of sweat and flailing arms.

I wear contact lenses to gigs like this but other people have yet to learn not to wear glasses when things get - erm - lively. One energetic, curly haired guy was moshing away but then suddenly paused sans spectacles. Next, I thought he was calling up a mate for help on his phone but no. This phone thing had a bright screen and a torch facility. A quick search of the dance floor revealed his glasses neatly folded up by someone's feet, completely untrodden upon. Amazing! However, I strongly suspect this had happened to him before. On went his specs and off the dude went, into the melee once again.

The Reverend McGinty on keyboards pointed out that The Creepshow had played at The White Rabbit twice before but that last nite's numbers exceeded the combined numbers of both earlier gigs. I had hoped that several mates of mine would've come along but some were away on holiday and others had booked other entertainments (although I can't imagine they had as much fun). I have a strong presentiment, as one of them would say, that The Creepshow will be back at The White Rabbit before long. Kenda said she wanted us to join them at the next gig in London, which was tempting.

Support was by The Graveyard Johnnies who began to get the crowd into the  mood for a party. Dragster were replaced by The Rocker Covers. This is a great name - some engines have rocker covers. The Rocker Covers come from Bristol and did (funnily enough) rocker covers of songs like Love Cats by The Cure and American Idiot by Green Day. This worked so well I'm surprised nobody has done it before but I think it's quite tricky and The Rocker Covers made a difficult job look easy. The crowd loved them.

The MC said this was the start of something big for The White Rabbit. The plan is to build it up as the premier intimate live music venue in Plymouth and the city could certainly do with something like that. The White Rabbit is well located and has a great atmosphere. I saw The Undertones there in my only previous visit and for a band like that it was superb.

Note to self - keep an eye out for further rockin' fixtures at The White Rabbit.

The Creepshow are only playing a couple more gigs in the UK over the next few says so see them while you can before they return to North America.