OR   Search for Artist/Title    Advanced Search
 
you are not logged in...  [login] 
All Reviews    Edit This Review     
Review: 'Viewer / Petrol Hoers / Fawn Spots'
'The Fulford Arms, York, 19th June 2015'   


-  Genre: 'Indie'

Our Rating:
There’s a lot of love for Viewer, the quirky electro comprising seminal musicmaker, DJ, and remixer Tim Wright and AB Johnson. Melding thumping disco beats and dancefloor-friendly tunes with Johnson’s sharp and often satirical social commentaries, delivered in a style that channels both Jarvis Cocker and Mark E Smith (simultaneously), they’re a rare beast in appealing to both the physical and the cerebral. That this was to be their final show after nine years meant a tinge of sadness hung over proceedings, but above all, there was a party vibe bouncing around the heaving pub venue.

Determined to make it a night to remember, they’d reunited with occasional collaborator Toastie Taylor, and lined up a spectacularly perverse set of support acts, with the mighty Fawn Spots getting things going.

Having seen them recently play 400+ capacity shows at The Brudenell and Belgrave Music Hall in Leeds, it was an increasingly rare treat to catch them back in the kind of venue I first saw them in when they started out. Being up-close and personal amplified the intensity of their hell-for-leather performance.

Petrol Hoers know how to make an impression. Three burly guys with beer guts in a bizarre array of outfits (a dress, underpants and some Little Britain-esque exercise getup) and wearing grotesque masks (a pig’s face, a horse’s head and a wrestler / gimp mask), they grunt and holler over a sequenced technoindustrial backing reminiscent of Wax Trax! era Revolting Cocks crossed with the most brutal grindcore noise. Parodic dance routines to snippets of dodgy disco hits from artists like Spagna and Beyonce only add to the absurdity. It’s funny and it’s twisted: you can’t help but laugh and admire their balls, while wondering ‘what the fuck?’

With synapse-exploding visuals projected at the back of the stage, Viewer delivered a set that gave the full works. Johnson strutted and threw shapes, pulled a heap of exercises (the man has a mean press-up action), drank beer and bantered. The vocal interplay between him and Toastie was tight, and Tim… Tim barely flexed a muscle as he sat behind his laptop, out of the line of sight, overseeing the smooth running of the audio and visuals he’s painstakingly assembled (and occasionally strolling off to the bar).

These are all of the elements that make Viewer the act they are, and it would be a missed opportunity not to review their career in the context of forebears including Sparks and Soft Cell. After a thumping rendition of 2006’s debut single ‘White Noise’, they close off the set with a nod to those ‘classic’ duos with their brilliantly idiosyncratic version of The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money)’.

Will they be back in the future? Who’s to say, but they’ve signed off in style and left everyone who came out with a night to remember.

  author: Christopher Nosnibor

[Show all reviews for this Artist]

READERS COMMENTS    10 comments still available (max 10)    [Click here to add your own comments]

There are currently no comments...
----------



Viewer / Petrol Hoers / Fawn Spots - The Fulford Arms, York, 19th June 2015
Viewer
Viewer / Petrol Hoers / Fawn Spots - The Fulford Arms, York, 19th June 2015
Petrol Hoers
Viewer / Petrol Hoers / Fawn Spots - The Fulford Arms, York, 19th June 2015
Fawn Spots