On a dreary Tuesday evening, the Night and Day’s Tardis properties were truly tested as two many-membered bands took to its tiny stage.
Rochdale tunesmiths THE URBAN BLUE are seven strong and come complete with a two-man brass section. Their ebb and flow and general surging sometimes reminded me of post-rockers such as Explosions in the Sky, with the aforementioned horns packing a psychedelic punch. At other points there was too much polite jazzy noodling for my tastes. Singer Alison’s vocals fall into the Cocteau Twins/Sundays camp, which is always nice, though sometimes they seemed a little peripheral to the action. The band cunningly brought a shedload of their friends and fans with them, which seems to be a good idea on a rainy night in Manchester.
Being a sucker for bands with an excess of vocalists (Fifth Dimension where are you now?), I was quite excited by DO ME BAD THINGS. With nine members, including five singers, it would be difficult to deny that Must Destroy Music’s latest signing possesses sonic power in bucketloads.
Do Me Bad Things’ set begins with a rip-roaring run through of upcoming single "Time for Deliverance" and doesn’t once let up from there. Lead singer, Nicolai Prowse gives good value throughout, undertaking several glamorous costume changes (think Iggy/Ziggy/Johansen), clambering around the set striking heroic poses and generally camping it up like I don’t know what.
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Whilst Prowse obviously stood out sartorially and theatrically, what really made the band for me where the powerful vocals of Chantal Dellusional, which were reminiscent of the finest Stax soul.
Boring old modernists might deride Do Me Bad Things for being revivalist rock and roll cabaret, but, hey, life’s only a cabaret old chum. To these ears, Do Me Bad Things are less Rocky Horror Picture Show (though one vocalist was admittedly Meatloafesque)and more New York Dolls with soul overload.
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