After a decade out of the limelight, 90's indie heroes DODGY made their live return in Manchester with this headlining acoustic set at new-ish live music haunt Moho, a cellar club reminiscent of the Bierkeller, and suddenly now the venue that's firmly established itself as THE place to play for new bands looking to create a stir on the never ending Manc treadmill/circuit.
Amongst this lively young clientele, I was feelin' old man, and uncool I guess, but still much less inhibited than many of the debs on display (I'm only thirtysodding seven, but the point is that I'm not 21 anymore). It was good craic.
Direct support came from local veterans THE LOGICALS, complete with a guest appearance from AZIZ IBRAHIM, guitar hero of Stone Roses fame that promised to heighten the level of interest still further. Such a double header guaranteed a sell out crowd and maximum exposure not just for the support acts rolling four to five deep in the main room, but also for the Designer magazine bands (including a couple of real born-yesterday rookie outfits) that were strutting their stuff on a platform of their own in the smaller, 'second' room just inside the entrance to the club.
First up in the main room were 100mph-relentless outfit MOTHER'S MESS with their sewing-machine crash bang ramshackle selection of don't-pause-for-breath offerings. This was a pure tune-in, drop out; their melodies and middle eights were largely bass driven, with just a hint of feedback.
"Yeahyeahyeah, I promiseyouuu" was the vocal refrain as the opening number ended like a head-on car/wall collision. The energy kept them flying until the halfway point of their half hour slot, with 1234 countdowns in between tunes that were less than half a second long. Somewhere in the second tune lurked the effects of a blues injection, an odd element of their speed-fuelled stylo. The relentless tempo didn't budge until the fourth number was reduced to a lurching drum-fuelled skank/stomp. Is that what you call love?
MOTHER'S MESS gave out something moody and infectious that stood out from the usual retro machine-gun power pop waanabees, though the overall effect came off the rails a bit once the initial adrenaline rush had subsided. This somehow suggests that for these lads, iminent burnout is a more likely fate than superstardom.
Designer magazine's second room party was kicked off by one-man indie band SHAUGHNESSY, and revved up a bit by the epic aspirations of STILL CITY SOUND, for whom enthusiasm was running to fever pitch in the rammed side-room.
"Missing Presumed Dead" was one track that typified their pretty good attempt to examine the darkened forensics of inner city psycho sex crimes, before the inevitable descent into garage psychedelia and inevitable return to anonymity.
They were followed by big-bass indie scallingtons STORMY CORNER. "Honey don't worry" their Quo-like singer assured us from the front of the main stage through their ever-escalating din of raw madness, but honey, I did! In terms of attitude, this lot put up a convincing front, no argument there. As their set progressed however, I began to wonder where the fuck the melody was. They sounded pretty under-rehearsed even through the rawness, as well they might for such a fledgling outfit.
There was more big support for the predictably-named ex-con confidence tricksters STRANGE WAYS as the Designer mag sideshow hit a peak. Their heavy-urgent guitar sound was a choppy quest. Mission: to explore the art of repetition.
It could have been the DX20's and the vodka, but their first tune sounded like one big, clumsy, messy cover of 'Another Brick In The Wall', complete with "Whoa-oh" backing vocals (some folk don't give a toss how they come across), and this one was great to hear: would they/wouldn't they pull off this audacious piece of cheese? Whatever the outcome, the end justified the means, as the entertainment value had shot up in the process. Make of it what you will ladies and gentlemen, make of it what you will!
"Lose Yourself" they urged us, as the number came crashing down around our ears with a stomp. Following up with an altogether shimmery song, was like total admittance of being lost without direction, the veritable piece of driftwood in this big ol' fathom-deep musical ocean. Irony is rarely lost on me but it was on this lot, who went on to declare that they had "something to say". And guess what? That's right, they bloody well didn't. Made me feel like a right old codger that did, cheers lads!
FLOONE were pure park-it-in-the ol'garage, despite their breakneck-paced delivery. OK it's a question of perspective, but only in terms of the limitations thereof. Despite the now raucous chants of a mullered clientele joining in for the cries of "Flooonear-r-r-mayyy" their darkness needed that spindly thread of guitar big time, just for the sake of downbeat charm.
Though the percussion clumsiness and leaden fills weren't conducive to the overall effect, their tunes gathered momentum off the back of a starshaped tambourine. Though "getting the fuck out of London" seemed to be a big goal for these earnest boys (and why not?), their haunted dancehall bass sound was often substantial enough to alleviate the gloom.
There were impressive 2-part harmonies to boot. Good on 'em!
Eventually, THE LOGICALS swaggered on, way past midnight, comparitive old men, and definite old hands in comparison to so much fresh-faced support. Eventually, they were joined by the Rickenbacker-wielding AZIZ IBRAHAM, whose crowd-pleasing antics took their set to a new level.
|
"Tonight Matthew, I'm gonna be Ian Brown" declared the maestro before leading the somewhat bemused Logical ones through a sparkling rendition of the Monkey-man hits 'Corpses In Their Mouths' and 'My Star'. This got the instant warm response no problem from a suddenly uninhibited audience now buzzing off Ibraham's groove-powered axe-wielding antics. All good.
And finally, at daft o'clock in the morning, with the bogs finally flooded and casualties aplenty amongst the ever more lairy crowd, on stepped Nigel Clarke and Andy Miller, representing DODGY with the aid of a synth here and there.
OK, so there were no bleached-out hairdos to dazzle us ten years on, with Clarke and Miller now looking faded and unassuming in line with this lowest of low-key returns. Nevertheless, their appearance was the cue for unconditional love and inhibition free stage invasions aplenty as dickhead 'fans' gripped the microphones in order to 'sing' along as the pair exchanged wearied glances. 'Haphazard' was how Clarke described it if I remember rightly, but at 2-3am, he sounded like a man wearily aware that euphemism and good humour was his only available coping stategy. By the time he'd broken a string himself just two tunes in, the cables/pedals and other whatnot littering the fringes of the stage had been given a proper trampling, and the results were never gonna be anything other than shambolic. But with their long-established pedigree to see them through, their long-awaited return to the stage was never gonna be anything less than well recieved. "I've got an aching in my bones/I feel exposed" indeed.
With coked up door staff on a power trip supreme, too busy strip-searching unknown faces in search of a top up via an attempt to instil some kind of no-fun policy from the start in others, the equipment onstage was well vulnerable (I've never seen door staff looking more wrecked than the punters, but one or two here were!). Stage security however, was nonexistent, sadly to the detriment and destruction of the music just when it really mattered most (shame, as the bar/cloakroom staff here are lovely, and that is always such a huge plus in this day and age).
Kicking off with 'In A Room', they summed things up from the start (opening line: 'In a room/there's no other faces' sounded like pure perception to me maan! It actually sounded like 'there's so many wasted' - appropriately enough to my ears). Heavens, people dancing to the music!
'Good Enough' was chilled out by the dynamic duo, probably to stem the flow of mass hysteria, but it soon gathered momentum, aided by the echoes of Osaka that came sampling through. Shameless or what! Soz lads, there was no way you were getting away with that one! In between the crowd-pleasing halcyon heyday tunes came new material, mid-tempo and altogether more thoughtful in light of the lost yard of pace that comes with age. Good stuff, but wasted on the wasted eh?
They never got themselves on a roll, but were far too experienced to appear bothered by matters beyond their control (beyond all control to be honest), choosing to persevere with patience in the face of such blind adulation. Coming as it did from fans too young to have been there the first time around, there couldn't have been the same buzz off this younger crowd. Or maybe they were starting to feel like it was way past their bedtime. Low-key just about summed their performance up, but just how much of that was a ploy to keep the lairy lot at the front from breaking summat in their excitement? Ahh, this could have been a triumphant return in front of genuine fans - the seven quid ticket price was a bargain, but the catch for taking centre stage involved carrying the can for too many hopefuls and rowdies I guess.
From someone there early to try and cover the lot, my view is that the promoters were asking a lot from the audience. Seven bastard hours in one venue is a long long time for anyone, and by chucking out time I was cursing my painfully short attention span, as well as those similarly afflicted young souls who were understandably reduced to ballooning long before the end. Overall, this was a good night, with top lads and lasses outnumbering the lairy and the rude by at least 2:1. But it could have been so much better.
|
