Gig Review: Masked Intruder at New Cross Inn, London 30/7/19 (by Emma Prew)

It’d been a while since everyone’s favourite mask-wearing, crime-committing pop punk band Masked Intruder were in town. They played with Me First And The Gimme Gimmes back in February 2017 but I hadn’t seen them headline in the UK since 2015! Since then, they’ve released their third album, titled III, earlier this year along with a 6-track EP in 2016. Basically, seeing Masked Intruder live again was well overdue. The London night of the 2019 European tour was, of course, at the New Cross Inn and featured Spoilers, Eat Defeat and The Famous Class too. Not even the fact that it was a Tuesday was going to stop this gig from being great.

The Famous Class are a London-based pop punk band who we’ve seen several times at the New Cross Inn over the past couple of years. It’s safe to say, however, that this was the biggest audience I’d, personally, seen them play to as the New Cross Inn was already pretty busy by 7.30pm. The Famous Class put a lot of energy into their performance from the outset, jumping around the stage enthusiastically as only a pop punk band can. They’ve been working on some new material and played their latest single, Juliet, as well as a fun cover of Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley. A fun start to the night for sure.

It probably goes without saying that we love Eat Defeat here at CPRW – their 2018 album I Think We’ll Be OK was pretty much our overall album of the year last year. Luckily, for myself and Colin, they play in London fairly often, despite being from up North, as the New Cross Inn is basically their home from home venue. The Inn was getting increasingly busier as the four-piece opened their set with Smile – which instantly had me smiling. Eat Defeat play fast, loud and passionately positive pop punk that is just such a joy to watch live. In between songs, they don’t take themselves too seriously with updates on the Burnley [football] score as well as mentioning how Spoilers kicked them off the main merch area (next to Masked Intruder) – it’s all good humoured fun. Their setlist included older tracks The North Remembers, dedicated to southerners Spoilers, and Don’t Look Back as well as plenty of favourites from I Think We’ll Be OK. Guitarist Rich broke a string during their penultimate song but managed to swiftly fix it, with the help of a member of The Famous Class, in time for Not Today, Old Friend – ‘I think we’ll be okaaaaay.’ I felt pretty okay after their set anyway!

Next up were Spoilers, another New Cross Inn and CPRW favourite. In fact, vocalist and guitarist Dan actually referred to his band as being ‘the New Cross Inn house band’. We’d popped outside for some air after Eat Defeat and found the room was pretty packed when we headed back inside for the Kent foursome. Squeezing our way towards the front of the room, we settled a few rows back as the band burst into their energetic, cheeky chappy punk rock. Like Eat Defeat, Spoilers released a new album last year – which also got a lot of airtime at CPRW HQ – called Roundabouts. Their setlist included a fair few songs from the album, such as the hugely-singalongable Same Again, Shortcuts – which is not to be confused with the Eat Defeat song of the same name – and the album’s title track, Roundabouts. There were plenty of existing Spoilers fans in the house, singing along merrily, and new fans were no doubt won over with older tune Punks Don’t Die as it’s hard to hear it and not sing along. Another top performance from Spoilers.

At last, it was time for Masked Intruder. If you’ve been to the New Cross Inn before (and if you haven’t, why ever not?) then you’ll know that there isn’t really a backstage area. Because of this, I wasn’t sure where exactly the band would appear from. Rather inventively they entered from the back of the room with Officer Bradford marching the four criminals through the crowd and on to the stage. This ensured that excitement levels in the New Cross Inn were peaked before the band had even started playing. For this tour, Masked Intruder consisted of Blue on guitar and vocals, Green on guitar, Red on drums and, in place of Yellow, Purple on bass. We soon learnt that Yellow is in jail so Intruder Purple had stepped in – and, spoiler alert, she did an awesome job.

Masked Intruder kicked off their set off with the conveniently titled I’m Free (At Last) from the latest album, while Officer Bradford watched on ominously from the side of the stage. The crowd was perhaps a little tame as this was a newer track but the next two songs, How Do I Get To You and The Most Beautiful Girl, certainly did the trick. It felt like the whole room was singing every single word back at Blue, a mosh pit had opened up and I was instantly reminded just how much fun Masked Intruder songs are live. Before too long it was time for Officer Bradford to run around the stage and get into the crowd, alongside songs such as Crime Spree and I Fought The Law. I imagine everyone reading this knows about Officer Bradford and his antics but, if you don’t, he’s basically the fifth member of the band who doesn’t actually play any instruments. He’s a police officer who chases Masked Intruder around, trying (unsuccessfully) to stop them from committing crimes. He also loves crowdsurfing, dancing and hugging audience members – we experienced the latter first hand. At one point, he picked up a young boy in his own intruder mask, who was watching with his dad at the side of the stage, and proceeded to carry him on stage and then into the crowd. (We later learnt that the boy’s name was Dexter, he was 8 years old and MI was his third gig. What a hero!) 

The whole Masked Intruder set felt like a greatest hits showcase because they just have so many hits – Saturday Night Alone, 25 To Life, Why Don’t You Love Me In Real Life, etc. I particularly enjoyed when Green left his guitar behind and danced with a girl in the audience, spinning her around, while the rest of the band played Hey Girl. The idea was that people wouldn’t mosh around them although a couple of lads couldn’t help themselves – Blue referred to them as being ‘16 year old boys with too much testosterone’. Ha! The highlight of the whole set came when Blue announced that they wanted to invite a special guest onto the stage to sing Heart Shaped Guitar with them – none other than New Cross Inn regular, member of the Be Sharp crew and friend of CPRW, Bee. I don’t doubt that it was nerve-wracking to get up on that stage in front of such large crowd but oh my gosh did Bee smash it – complete with a stage dive at the end. After over an hour of pure pop punk bliss, Masked Intruder came to the end of their set. Following an old school double-whammy of Crazy and Stick ’Em Up, the band finished things off perfectly with I’ll Be Back Again Someday and I Don’t Wanna Say Goodbye To You Tonight. It’s like they wrote these songs to be set closer material!

Masked Intruder are so much more than a gimmicky pop punk band, they are such talented musicians – some of those guitar solos verge on hair metal – and songwriters. Their performance is polished without seeming completely staged and it’s all just ridiculously amounts of fun as well! I was slightly dreading a Tuesday night gig (having not been to one for ages nor dealt with a Wednesday at work with 4–5 hours sleep) but it was oh so worth it.

This gig review was written by Emma Prew.
Rubbish photography also by Emma.