Rarely – very rarely – the stars align with a live show and everything falls into place, the kind of platonic ideal of a gig where the crowd is up for it, the band are firing on all cylinders, and the outside world ceases to exist for an hour or so. Glasgow three-piece Bin Juice are the support for anarchic queer punk act Lambrini Girls who play a riotous set that’s more of a soundtracked moshpit of shared experience than a gig in the traditional ‘playing coherent songs’ sense, but all the better for it.
Bin Juice are on imperious form though, their Sonic Youth by way of Huggy Bear spiky punkisim is just what the sweaty basement of the Hug & Pint needs tonight. Rattling giddily through a short set of catchy shout-alongs about eating too many ‘special’ cookies, self-care advice from elderly relatives and topical new summer single ‘Sweaty Tits’. Crowd favourite and three-day earworm ‘Hungry For Toes’ is a deliriously silly ode to desperation-inspired cannibalism that makes me glad I didn’t wear sandals, as the punky scratch gives way to a jagged atonal bit of Lee Ranaldo-esque guitar.
It’s a home crowd here which clearly helps the mood, the band have an infectious confidence and an evident love of playing. There are nice bits of back-and-forth with the crowd, interspersing songs with self-deprecating anecdotes. Sharing vocal duties between the three members means they each function as a front person, taking the weight as a group and knowing when to step back and hold the others up. They’re the kind of band that make you want to thrust a guitar into the hands of your closest friends and get up there yourself.
Check out more from Bin Juice here.
