Picture the scene. You arrive to review a gig, and you’re promptly ushered outside by the band’s manager to see a photographic activity that “might be interesting”, only to be confronted with the members of SPECIAL NEEDS happily driving around the streets of Camden in a couple of fairground dodgems, oblivious to any other vehicles, and with approximately forty wailing fans (predominantly female) chasing after them down the streets.
After a couple of near misses with some oncoming double-decker buses, a small number of police riot vans, and a bizarre street chase (some local scallies drove off in one of the dodgems), everyone was shown back into the venue for the fun and games.
Which is exactly what this band seems to be about. Despite the band’s name, which conjures up the image of spotty angst-ridden teenagers, their music, lyrics, and their performance oozed decent ‘wholesome’ fun. That said, Special Needs aren’t exactly ‘Hanson’.
The sell-out gig (Barfly, Camden) was on the last leg of the band’s recent tour promoting their forthcoming single, "Blue Skies", released on Alan McGee’s label, Poptones Records.
Looking like they’ve stepped straight from the set of Quadraphenia, these chaps scrub up well. The singer, Zac, really knew how to milk his audience, although occasionally he was a little too ambitious with some of the falsetto vocals. The songs were full of energy, the delivery of the music was electric and at one point I was afraid that the floor was going to cave in given the amount of bouncing that was going on. Most of all, as performers, they were charming and engaging. Let’s face it, if a band can pull off lyrics such as “Your love tripped up on a rainbow” without sounding disgustingly sentimental, then they’re doing something right.
Not surprisingly, the venue was packed full of Special Needs devotees, although there were a sizeable number of music fans present who figured that Special Needs would ultimately be well suited as a support act for the Keiser Chiefs. I’m not quite so sure about how fair that statement is, but I can see where they’re coming from.
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Special Needs were entertaining to watch, although I did have mixed feelings about their music. Their influences were obvious and very easy to discern. There were elements of The Jam, The Small Faces, and The Kinks, amongst others, but there were times that they possibly ran the risk of sounding like a Libertines tribute band.
They fit very nicely into the genre of British (London) based garage/punk indie groups who produce very sharp-edged, punky, harmony-driven pop songs. Put them next to any one of the following: Franz Ferdinand, The Ordinary Boys, Keiser Chiefs, BabyShambles, etc, and they would not be out of place. Bearing this in mind, Special Needs cannot fail to do well.
Whether they are unique enough to stand out from the crowd remains to be seen. They sing about women with old-fashioned names like Sylvia, who stand outside Tescos smoking cigarettes; about “Debt ridden loves of the A40”; girls in laundrettes; and about some boy who buys a new motorbike, only to die in a car crash, and then get brought back to life by the doctors. This is quirky enough, and there is a rather sweet naïve quality about their lyrics, but don’t expect to be challenged.
Towards the end of their set I decided that as long as you take this band for what they are, a fun, cheeky, happy-go-lucky group of lads out for a laugh, then you couldn’t go wrong. Who needs Sha-Waddy-Waddy with bands like this?
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