Budgie might be the best hard rock band you’ve never heard of. But, while you and much of the music world has been studiously ignoring them for the last 40 years, the bands who play their brand of hard riffing proto-metal have most definitely been paying attention.

It’s a mystery why Burke Shelley’s men never achieved the status of a Motorhead, or a Led Zep even: too unpretentious, maybe, too ironic, too Welsh? Who knows? But Iron Maiden, Soundgarden, Metallica and other high priests of the dark arts of riffage have covered their music and acknowledge the band as one of the most influential of their type.

A packed and sweaty Underworld was properly appreciative as the three-piece launched this short tour with Whiskey River, a track almost as old as the band itself, but as contemporary a piece of stoner rock as you’re likely to hear from any group of bearded 20-somethings. The classic Napoleon Bona Parts I & II - the ultimate Budgie headbanger - elicited, well, headbanging, and tracks from a strong new album were as enthusiastically received as those from New Wave Of British Heavy Metal-era LPs Nightflight and Power Supply.

With former Dio guitarist Craig Goldy in harness Budgie sound as good as ever, and great riff-led songs from the 70s - ‘Hot As A Docker’s Armpit’, ‘Crash Course In Brain Surgery’, ‘In The Grip Of A Tyrefitter’s Hand’ - sound fresher today than they did 20 years ago. But those song titles give the clue as to why mainstream success evaded Budgie: they don’t always appear to take themselves seriously enough.

While their contemporaries, Led Zeppelin and Co., were composing pseudy lyrics that would shame a 14-year-old, Budgie wrote better riffs but refused to play the art-house game. Quite right too.

So there you have it: Budgie. The band Led Zeppelin might have been.

Richard Hodkinson
Pic: londontourpix