Pop Will Eat Itself (PWEI) Mark II jettisoned into The Bristol Fleece on Thursday, March 22nd to fire out a mix of hits from their previous incarnation and 2011 album, New Noise Designed by a Sadist. A packed venue crammed in with anticipation pushed towards the small stage as the lights went down and the into to “The Incredible PWEI vs. The Moral Majority”, and the sampled rousing sermon of Pentecostal American pastor Jimmy Swaggart, further stirred the excitement.
Lenin says that the best and the quickest way to undermine any 
society is through its music… Music, ladies and gentleman, is the gift of God it was given to man to offer praises to God and to lift us up to him and to exalt Him to touch the tender recesses of our hearts and of our minds.
Mary Byker (former frontman of the legendary Gaye Bykers On Acid) and original member Graham Crabb bounced around of each other as things kicked off with “Back 2 Business”. From the beginning the audience reacted jumping and dancing around as Crabb and Byker took it in turns with their vocals bounding to the front of the stage and letting the odd member of the audience take over vocals.
“Dance of the Mad Bastards” from Cure For Sanity has evolved from a keyboard-dominated track to a far rockier one, which gave Tim Muddiman guitarist (Gary Numan and Sulpher) the opportunity to stretch his 
impressive guitar craft with ease. 1992 album The Looks or The Lifestyle produced heavier and darker sounds compared to the early PWEI albums as the band experimented with industrial sounds and “Get the Girl! Kill the Baddies” saw things pick up a notch higher. “Ich Bin Ein Auslander” brought about a dedication from Crabb to The Anti-Nazi League and a pogo breaks out with plastic pints of beer being thrown in the air, soaking an already sweaty mob below. Afterwards, Davey Bennett the bass player passed his bottle of beer onto a member of the audiamce at the front to replenish lost beverages.
However, it was a couple of tracks from the 1989 album This Is the Day… This Is the Hour… This Is This! that people were really looking forward to and the band appeared to enjoy the moment as much as the onlookers who went crazy to “Def Con One” and “Can U Dig It?” That is not to say that tracks from last year’s album were received any less favourably, with no fewer than seven songs getting played with grins from the bass player Muddiman and his jet black guitar blowing eardrums, and birthday boy 
Jason Bowld (who even had the audience singing “Happy Birthday” to him), beating the living daylights out of his drum kit.
Chaos and bedlam took over with “PWEI vs. The Prodigy” and “Their Law”, which was led by the tall dread locked bass guitarist that is Davey Bennett, who placed one boot on the monitors at the front 
and along with the crowd punched his arm forward and yelled, “I’m the law and you can’t beat the law!”
It was an impressive performance from 20+ year old a band, who in their first life were well ahead of their time and even now performed like they still had converts to seek out to further bring about a revival. “Can U Dig It?” HELL YEAH!
