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The New Rock Revolution, huh? It’s stamped on the tickets,
it’s all over the walls, its got t-shirts for sale,
its logo (oh yes indeed, it’s logo) beams from screens
amongst jarringly edited clips. Even Britpop, possibly
the most widely exploited genre in the history of popular
culture and associated cheap tat, didn’t have a fucking
logo! Never mind that only one – going on two – of tonight’s
bands (not to mention acts spread across the rest of
this fortnight of shows) could be considered members
of this, ahem, revolution. But never let the facts get
in the way of a good marketing strategy. Still, that
aside, and the fact that the publication in question
is shrinking in such a myriad of different ways, God
bless ‘em for this tour.
These shows do tend to pack out from doors opening,
and that’s testament enough to their necessity. Dublin’s
The Thrills come out to a near full house with sway
in their stride and a dazed glow on their faces, and
you kind of hope and think they would if they were just
playing to the merchandise stall. This is candy-centred
West Coast pop of the sort Teenage Fanclub used to churn
out before hitting mid-career auto-pilot, Velvet Underground
guitary nonchalance, Beach Boy harmonies, just really
bloody nice songs. And with able help (spiritual and
physical) from the Poly Spree horn section they
get all vivacious with a stunning version of current
single ‘One Horse Town’. The first glimmer of sunshine
tonight.
But, no, it’s gone gloomy again, natch. Interpol
are gloomy – really fucking glooooomy – dark, almost
expressionless, recluse, stony-faced, and a little bit
new-wave gothic for good measure. And they can’t help
being hair-on-the-back-of-yer-neck-electric for it.
In the end. For all the blunt characteristics there’s
an edge, when they pick up to speed, that could take
off the ear of the unsuspecting. Opening with album
intro, the creeping ‘Untitled’, may have been a dubious
choice as it hobbled, lost, without punch, vaguely looking
for its groove. But with ‘Obstacle 1’, ‘PDA’ and the
real ice-breaker ‘Say Hello To The Angels’ penetrating
in all directions, rhythms chopping and those dour lead-weight
vocals keeping emotions at ground level, when the whole
lot finally matches you can’t help but be stirred by
it all deep down.
Out of numerous encounters, this is the first time we’ve
seen The Polyphonic Spree on a stage that will
take them all. Well, nearly – in a house with 24 tenants
there could always be more room (and where would the
laundry go, you rightly wonder?). They immediately live
up to their probable tag as Soundman’s Worst Nightmare,
seeming to the untrained ear like an unsettled Jools
Holland bowel movement for roughly 10 minutes, but even
then Tim Delaughter’s doe-eyed puppy/committed-loon
balancing act hypnotises you into a delirious state
of heightened glee. The man literally bounces off the
walls, like a fallen angel on a pogo-stick with a stash
of laughing gas, making Wayne Coyne look like Ozzy Osborne
the morning after Halloween. And that kind of joy, as
unnerving as it might be close-up, can’t help but be
utterly contagious.
At one count, with a fully white-robed The Thrills on
singing/clapping/jumping/arsing-about duties, there
were about 28 bodies on stage, we think. You try counting
that many moving targets – especially with the hyper-enthusiastic
bearded choral member who disappears off the back of
the stage almost as often as he’s on it. A visual feast
matched limb for limb by a veritable multi-layered tropical
fruit-cocktail of sound. By the time ‘Hanging Around’
and the increasingly immense ‘Soldier Girl’ arrive,
most instruments have managed to jab through the delicate
wall of sound and every inch of muggy Astoria air is
rife with colourful reverberation. Special jaw-dropping
praise this time goes to new song ‘2000 Places’, like
Bowie bungee jumping off the Alps to the Sound Of Music.
As ever there are very few appropriate words. You could
talk about stealing the show, but they did it the honourable
way.
All of which renders talking about the other bands kind
of worthless now. And The Datsuns do nada to
help that, treading an achingly clockwork, stodgy, lumpen,
emotionless, male-testosteroned, cut-n-paste, watery
bag of dire 70s metal sickness. We went to the little
boy’s room during one nauseating bout of uninspiring
indecent axe-fiddling, only to come back and find ourselves
up to the neck in another. Or was it the same one? We
were under the impression that the last two decades
of alternative music were the necessary polar antitheses
of this kind of spineless posturing? The audience thins
out rapidly, the uber-fashionable types in Dazed & Confused
garb continue to dance awkwardly, we wait for ‘Harmonic
Generator’ (a tuneful break in the clouds) and then
follow the sensible ones.
James Berry for Crud Magazine 2003©
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