Over the years, Edinburgh's International Arts Festival has seen it's fair share of Hollywood film stars grace it's streets and venues. Though, I betcha none of them wore a red, sleeveless, skintight catsuit with stragetically placed zips, while also sporting a large horned Vikings helmet.
Juliette Lewis, she of various big screen blockbusters (Cape Fear, Kalifornia, Natural Born Killers), has, for the last couple of years, been touring with her new found passion, JULIETTE & THE LICKS, and they arrived in Auld Reekie bang in the middle of a two-month long tour.
Now, the last Hollywood siren to grace this city with her musical aspirations was Minnie Driver, with her bland country/pop musings, but the less said about that the better. Unfortunately, Lewis doesn't fare much better.
Bouncing on stage to a sold out Liquid Rooms last night, Lewis and her Licks looked like your stereotypical 'rawk' band. All sleeveless t-shirts, perfectly posed guitar stances and corny Californian crowd interaction. All that was missing was the immortal line: “Edinburgh, we love you.” Thankfully she spared us that little vignette, but we did get cringeworthy banter like: “This one's for the ladies”, and even worse: “This is a beautiful song for a beautiful city.” Fuck.
A cursory glance at the Licks website will dispell the punk rock ethic that surrounds the band. Loaded with advertisements for major players like Amazon and Apple, the corporate diluting of the original ethic is, now, almost complete. (www.downloadpunk.com, anyone?) Let me tell you something Ms Lewis; Eve Libertine is punk; Vi Subversa is punk; You ain't.
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As usual, the sound in the Liquid Rooms was dire, to say the least. Muddy vocals and poor levels are the bane of every musicians performance, and last night was no different.
Guitarists Todd Morse and Kemble Walters are powerful players, none more so on tracks 'American Boy', and the band's first single, 'You're Speaking My Language', while bassist Slippy, who has replaced original bass player Paul Ill, looks like he can play with the best of them. But, the main problem is most of their riffs and runs are instantly recognisable, seeing as they're lifted from previous hardhitters like The Damned and Dead Kennedys.
As they rattled through their set, with 'Money In My Pocket, 'So Amazing' and new single 'Got Love To Kill',' being particular standouts, Lewis' stage histrionics looked rehearsed and unspontaneous. Even her dive into the crowd at the end of the night had a whiff of deliberation about it.
After a performance lasting a little under an hour, the band reappeared for an encore of The Stooges 'Search & Destroy' showing us, at last, that Juliette & The Licks can kick ass. If only they could write songs as powerful as Mr Osterburg can, then we'd really have a band on our hands.
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