Gig Review: Good Grief, Little Wars and Ike at Outpost Liverpool - Friday 06 June 2025

Words: Richie Yates, Photos: Adrian Wharton, Al Blundell, Richie Yates.

It’s a good sized crowd at Outpost, there’s a new promoter in town (Grumpy Slug) and they’ve nearly filled the place. Great starting atmosphere.

Ike enhance that atmosphere, they are a good time outfit on their first gig and its a bit like Monty Python plays Rock n Roll. They seem to have a thing for the Cramps one minute, there’s a full on swap around and they blast into a rock n roll cover then its back to some more punkier off the wall rock sounds including a stand out track which I can only guess at its name – something like ‘Blood is the Way’ which seemed to have the crowd singing along. Guess they aren’t as deaf as me.

Little Wars blasted it up a notch in terms of where they are in the ‘rock’ spectrum. Grunge would be a good description for this three piece and though there are definite Pearl Jam moments (big soaring grunge rock that is quite breathtaking) they show a wider range of creativity. Its still rock and heavy at that but theres some great guitar work that flies off in different directions and the bass lines are fluid and extremely ‘on it’. Even more impressive when we find out the bassist has sneaked out of a hospital ward just for the gig and had to be smuggled back in after. Get well soon dude.

I can’t review MRI, I play in them. Could say we we’re awesome but Last Stop rules don’t allow such self promotion (but we were…[Editor: Enough!]).

Good Grief actually were awesome. This is a tight musical machine that definitely have Bob Mould up there in their list of influences (even if only for their website catch line Husker Don’t), and are capable of writing sharp melodic songs. The band hail from about 2013 and toured the UK and even managed to get over to the US. There’s then a few years gap before they re-emerged. They released and album ‘Shake Your Faith’ in 2022 and reveal that a new album is on its way. There’s a lot of references in their music, nods to Kristin Hersh and a host of Indie music one minute and I’d go with hints of Dinosaur Jr too. Good Grief are capable of moments of musical introspection that blurs seamlessly and melodically into heavier and more upbeat material.