Four young boys expecting to fly. Never a rare site in British guitar music, but welcome nonetheless. THE BLUETONES emerged from a garage in Hounslow with their debut release proper 'Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?' on psuedo-independent Superior Quality Recordings almost ten years ago. And it may be hard for them to believe that such an amount of time has passed since they were touring with the likes of Brit-fop weaklings Shed 7, the enduring and increasingly imaginative Supergrass and being bestowed with tentative comparisons to the Stone Roses - Adam Devlin providing a little bit of shimmering guitar magic to songs that didn't just plod along with the Travis and Snow Patrol dullness of the recent wave of Radio 1 daytime-fodder, but had a genuine lightness of touch and definite groove. So many were disappointed when their debut album was released to a lukewarm critical response that suggested their honed live sound just wasn't matched by the record's less-than-superior production. For many, the Bluetones were left on the runway.
For others the Bluetones - with their small but devoted groups of fans in skinny fit T-shirts - were one of the support acts who epitomized the true essence of Britpop, more than the NME-styled Oasis and Blur fist-fight that is frequently referred to in the general discourse of that particular period of musical time. But having largely disappeared from most people's radar what are the Bluetones doing ten years on?
Tonight they saunter on stage same as they always did and ever the charmer, Mark Morriss welcomes us 'to the show'. They look pretty much the same: regulation smart indie, Scott Morriss wearing a beard, Mark a blazer jacket and Adam Devlin a few extra pounds. And they launch into "Soloman Bites The Worm" with its start-stoppin' tequila soaked guitar riff and Morriss Sr accompanying the music with some Mexican ramblings. They are, as they always were, customarily tight - Morriss always hitting the right notes, each high-hat snap hit with precision timing. Playing live was never their problem.
As Morriss straps on an acoustic for the second number rather obviously singing 'Back stabber, money grabber/some people love you / some people hate you' to the tune of the Primal Screams' Rocks, the result is, well, nice. Quite foot tappin', you know? But in ten years this is the best they can do. And I feel like a bit of a back stabber actually. 'This is nice, innit?' remarks Morriss and we agree. This is nice but this is the Bluetones problem: Nice is not good enough. It's not that the Bluetones are bad - far from it. I want to tell you what a remarkable rock monster the ‘Blooo – Tones’ have become, that the detractors were wrong; that away from the media spot-light they have developed into the band that they promised to be early on. It is however, obvious that this is not the case.
"Cut Some Rug" is next and it is as good as it always was, with a rough sounding Devlin riff under-pinned with little shards of glass and Morriss getting close to having attitude: 'It's hard to have responsibility / and judging by you / a personality'; Eds the drummer thrashing his little drum kit to pieces; limbs grooving so hard that he looks as though he may take off through sheer momentum. The newer songs, however, stay firmly on the ground, along with the audience who have obviously forgotten how to dance for the night. And the look on Morriss's face almost seems to conceding a little doubt in what they're doing. This is a shame.
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So it's on with the show and some half-baked social observation with songs about auto-erotic asphyxiation ("i thought it better to write a song about it than try it" – why bother? This is GLC territory) and people who like to drive cars ("Fast Boy" and "Autophilia") showing the limits of Morriss's lyric writing skills and imagination. Coupled with the fact that the music swaps the clarity of old for a MOR-ish blend of blandness, this feels suspiciously like a band struggling to create a new identity, but sounding like they're just clutching at straws. The more recent songs seemingly have little life, little love, none of the bitter-sweet emotion that once separated them from their more clubfooted contemporaries who since left the building.
It's not that any of these songs are bad, just they don't touch the heart-wrenching frailty of "The Fountainhead", the pale beauty and lost love of "Putting Out Fires" and the epic, though gentle "Talking To Clarry", all of which are omitted from the track listing tonight. And this of course would be right considering where the Bluetones are in their career, it's just that they haven't yet been able to replace them with songs worthy of filling the hole. That they even dig out two quality B-sides from Expecting To Fly era singles ("The Devil Behind My Smile" and "String Along") only serves to highlight their basic problem: They just don't make 'em like they used to, a point which hits home only harder when we're treated to three in a row: "Carn't Be Trusted", "Bluetonic" and "Slight Return", the melody of the latter always leaving you wanting more than you get, all minor indie classics.
They encore with a double-paced version of "Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?", the promise that we'll be seeing them again soon at the larger Shepherds Bush Empire, before the cheeky-cowboy bass line to "If..." finally jolts the audience into remembering what their feet are for. If the Bluetones could remember how to write songs with any of the charm of old, everyone would be happy.
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