Rock 4 Kids - Colne Valley Leisure Centre, 24 March 2007
Ah, dear, dear Slawit. It's a funny place; whenever I visit, I feel as if I've just doubled the gene pool.
And labels are funny things, especially when applied to music. If you've never heard a band before, all your preconceptions are built on the label someone has stuck on them. We all do it; music is one of the few things which haven't been "PC"ed yet - it's still acceptable to dislike various types of music; you don't have to tolerate other people's (lack of) taste and accommodate their wishes; you can just tell them to **** off and turn your Walkman up to 11.
Hence, without fear of imprisonment, I can state that hip-hop makes me run screaming from the room, that opera leaves me cold and that MariahHoustonDion is the three-headed beast in the Gospel According to Tommy.
Two labels always make me nervous, though. The first is "alternative"; alternative to what, exactly? The second is "Indie".
Now, I'm old enough to remember what "Indie" meant; it was a post-punk thing, independent record labels releasing material the big boys wouldn't touch. It was Postcard (Orange Juice, Aztec Camera), Rough Trade (Scritti Politti, Spizz Energi) and Factory (Joy Division). Not any more; "indie" these days seems to mean blokes with guitars playing vaguely 60s-revivalist stuff; The Answer and Kaiser Chiefs have a lineage that goes back through The Jam to The Small Faces and The Kinks; a very London-centric commercial sound; and the big labels love it. What's "indie" about that?
So you see, Friends of Dave had all this to contend with before they'd even played a note, and all because of a label. They opened the show with a Snow Patrol number and, right away, you could tell they were enjoying themselves (even if they looked as if they should be in the pub along the road watching the England game). What's not to love about a band with Lee Hurst's long-lost brothers playing lead and rhythm guitars? Material was as you'd expect - Kaisers, Killers etc - a good start to the night.
Next up was Vital Signs. They were billed as "Colne Valley's answer to The Commitments". Now, there's another label for you. One which displays a singular lack of ambition. You wouldn't get a comedian calling himself "Lindley's Jim Davidson"; you wouldn't get on the shortlist at Home FM if you called yourself "The Simon Bates of Dalton".
Simon Cowell would have had a field day with them; this was really, really bad karaoke. Hook up a dynamo to the recently-departed James Brown because he's spinning in his grave a damn sight faster than those turbines on the Civic Centre roof; "I Feel Good" appeared to start in 3 different keys. They almost rescued the set with a politically-corrected "Sweet Home Alabama" but, from there on in, they clearly started making it up as they went along. The random song selector threw up Coldplay, Kaiser Chiefs, Bryan Adams (I giggled at the thought of Dave hastily rewriting the Jaggies' setlist), Oasis and - horror of horrors - REM (the appearance of a mandolin onstage these days has the same effect a saxophone used to because, just as "sax = Baker Street", "mandolin = Losing My Religion"). The cherry on the cake was the inclusion of "Pride" by the most over-rated band in living memory, U2. This was clearly shoe-horned in because the singer thinks he's Bono. Someone needs to tell him he isn't.
I thought the mini-moshers in the crowd were really cute. Everyone should have one as a pet, but they're messy little critters, aren't they?
It's over 20 years since my college mate, Brian, started raving about this new, super-charged rock music he called "thrash". He dragged me along to a gig in Glasgow (2 quid, if memory serves; bear in mind that it used to cost a fiver to see the top bands at the Apollo at this time, kids; none of your £80-to-stand-in-a-field nonsense back then) featuring two up-and-coming acts of the genre. Anthrax were really funny. Noisy as hell, but heavy on the humour. Metallica scared the living bejesus out of me.
Icarus very much reminded me of Anthrax. The image is straight out of 1985 - Dom should have arrived on a skateboard! Thrash musicianship is under-rated; the key and tempo changes are legion and unpredictable to the casual ear but Icarus were very tight; a very talented bunch of guys (much more so than they deserve to be at that age). I was particularly impressed by the brave but expertly executed cover of Maiden's "Phantom of the Opera" (even if it was a bit rushed to begin with; it's fast enough guys, you don't need to prove anything!) and the great Sabbath medley. Nice touches of humour; they didn't take themseves too seriously under the lights, though singer/lead Sam could smile a bit more off-stage! Oh, bassist Dan looks like Captain Caveman.
Y'know what? I'm going to let someone else write up the Jaggies' set. I'll only make one comment; "Faithfully" has the potential to be very, very special, but that's my school disco memories you're playing with, boys - it needs a bit of polish yet...
Whatever happened to number 48?
