I've been into Deviated Instinct since I was about 11 or 12, when I first heard "Behind the Scaffold" on the Friday Rock Show on Radio One, a session they'd recorded for John Peel.
My rather tender age at the time coupled with the fact that I was a pure metalhead meant that by the time I started sneaking into Liverpool's Planet X club a couple of years later, Deviated Instinct were long gone, and I never got the chance to see them. When I heard earlier this year that they were playing in Bradford, only their second gig since they decided to get a wash in 1993, I was besides myself with excitement; what's more, support was to come from Extinction of Mankind, whose Northern Scum has had a lot of airtime in my house.
Warprayer were first up, total British hardcore/anarcho sound will keep my eye out for them, then Extinction of Mankind played a blistering set, Scoot's last gig before he goes off to Brazil or something. Then what everyone is waiting for, Deviated instinct come onstage, opening with Resurrection Encore. They sound amazing. Putrid Scum, Judas Cancer.... halfway through I have to hand my stuff and the camera over to SJW so I can get down the front for Slow Death Suck. I'd already seen the setlist (it was on the stage in front of us) so I knew there wouldn't be any Behind the Scaffold, but closing the set with a double whammy of Sacrecrow and Rock N Roll Conformity made me very happy. We cajoled them into staying onstage for one more song;
They had to do Putrid Scum again because they had only practised the songs on the setlist.
It didn't matter though, they sounded great and it was well worth the trip over to Bradford for."Why weren't you this good in 87?"
"Because we were always drunk".
that Deviated Instict setlist in full:
The Resurrection Encore
House of Cards
Putrid Scum
Despair
Judas Cancer
Slow Death Suck
Stormcrow
Beyond Pain
Conquest for Eternity
Scarecrow
Rock N Roll Conformity
Putrid Scum (again)
Links:
Warprayer
Extinction of Mankind
Deviated Instinct
Couple more photos here.
