Beldon Haigh and The Mother of All Bands appeared at The Liquid Room as part of the Official Edinburgh Fringe on Saturday, 11th August 2018. The buzz in the room was electric as the audience awaited the appearance of three famous world leaders, armed with instruments.
Beldon Haigh are a Rock/Funk/Pop act who appear with Trump on Bass, Putin on Drums and Kim Jong Un on Guitar plus one of Landon Meier’s trademark baby heads. As the lights go down and the first track ‘Airwaves’ begins. We are here for a number of reasons but this song is also one of them. Tonight is part of the single launch for ‘Airwaves’ – a punchy song with anthemic chorus which holds a spotlight on the entertainment industry for it’s monotony and misogyny. It pulls you in with an infectious funky bassline and explodes into a melodic chorus, which the audience are all singing by the end of the second verse.
Hailing from Falkirk, Beldon Haigh are at home in Edinburgh and especially here at the Edinburgh Fringe where liberal essence is in the air we breathe. The band belt out other numbers, ‘Land of Hope’ – a song highlighting the plight of asylum seekers, ‘Fools Rules’ – a rally fake news channels and ‘Gaslight’ describing the escalating arms trade and the use of chemical weapons.
Beldon Haigh and The Mother Of All Bands are incendiary, provocative and hilarious. The mesmerising spectacle of three huge world leaders rocking out on stage is surreal, even riotous. I was reminded of the Woody Guthrie quote famously engraved into his guitar ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’.
Beldon Haigh and the Mother Of All Bands are waging a different kind of war. In this more complex age of information overload this protest band is cutting through with humour and using world leaders own images to parody them.
A Latin number, specially composed for the Fringe called ‘Hermano’ finishes the set off with a bang, before a very deliberately placed and moving version of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ followed by an adaptation of Sinatra’s ‘That’s Life’, reworked to ‘That’s Lying!’ Needless to say the crowds enjoyed singing along to new provocative lyrics, always provoking a unified sense of protest.
This was a kick ass protest music with a lot of humour and ton of fun. People cheered, sang, shouted and danced. It was a carnival of protest. For Beldon Haigh and The Mother Of All Bands this seems to be the purpose of their existence – to inspire people to use their voices, refuse to be silenced, remain alert and resolute in the face of increasingly complex totalitarian practices.
At the end of the gig a friend turned to me and said “this wasn’t about one, two or three songs – it was about the whole message”.
That summed it up.