Their first Coachella show was, to listen to the band, beset by technical difficulties and a "comedown" after playing rabid crowds in places like Buenos Aires (from where the Guardian were stood, barely able to get inside a packed tent, it seemed as if they were doing just fine).
The more rabid support another of their countrymen, John O'Sullivan, who simply asserted: "All government is evil".
2012 began with a limping economy, the Tories fighting the Lib Dems and each other like rabid ferrets in a sack, Nick Clegg's party flat-lining in the polls at an existentially threatening level and Labour still with a lot to do to establish its credibility as an alternative government.
Like recycling, it's clearly imperative, but somehow it's always seemed to be the favoured stamping ground of either the dull or rabid.
For the rabid restaurant fan like me, a trip to San Francisco is like being dropped into a sweetie shop with the key thrown away.
After signing to Virgin/EMI last March, they were named on the BBC's Sound Of 2015 list in January, and recent singles Hey and The Hunter both became fixtures on primetime Radio 1. They've used this exposure to build a rabid fanbase that, in Portsmouth tonight, will include not only screaming 18-year-old girls but also their fathers, nodding and declaring Slaves "a proper old-school punk band".
In a race dominated by insular, rabid rightwingers, some of whom did not know what Libya was or exactly which government departments they wanted to cut, Huntsman comes off as the voice of reason.
Driven by Ejiofor's explosive, masculine energy, this is an inspiring piece to appease the most rabid daughter of Eve.
Fidesz might well tack further to the right in response, creating a vicious circle of ever more rabid nationalism.
While Labour enjoys portraying the Tory front bench as a bunch of sexist boors, in fact, most of them are married to rabid feminists — and it starts at the very top.
But in America any mention of cost-effectiveness prompts rabid accusations of rationing and death panels.
