30 January 2010
A busy night in Angel. If I didn't know better I would have guessed it was a themed fancy dress night - women had to dress like a Vivian Girl, while the blokes used Daniel Day Lewis in My Beautiful Launderette as a style guide. Not quite what I had anticipated when considering my own wardrobe; I hope I didn't clash with the mood.
Openers Yuck are a bit of a name to drop lately, but not for any reason that I could discern. Playing in a generic style familiar to most post-punk pub-rock bands, albeit with a hint of an 80's mid-American flavour (Tom Petty?), I was surprised that, when greeting the audience, the singer spoke with an English accent. Competent, but deeply uninspired.
By comparison, Colours were a breath of fresh air, delivering their set with a sense of energy that Yuck had completely lacked, but after a bit the songs all blended into each other, the only variety coming when they played exactly the same but a bit faster. I wonder if using two rhythm guitars but no lead stops the songs from being developed? Pleasing enough fuzzy sound, to me, but rather one-dimensional.
Real Estate, on the other hand, and slightly against expectations - mine, at any rate - showed that they have a load of good pop songs that just happen to be wearing today's vogueish dressing. Bridges, choruses, hooks, and sometimes even harmonies; those are the traditional components hiding under there. And when they hit a particular setting for the guitar, the layers of reverb became a spatial event and not just a device to hide a gap. Best song was the first of two as-yet-nameless new tunes, and best moment was the first high yelp added to Fake Blues.
How nice to have the recordings make more sense after seeing a live show.
Convinced.
Real Estate-Fake Blues
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