| Unable to pull ourselves away from the first-half car-crash that was the England rugby team this evening, I’m afraid we missed the first of tonight’s four-bands-for-four-quid spectacular - Hope Valley. So we shall pass swiftly and darkly on to the intriguingly-named second band. We should have hated Wander Phantom. Right now, I should be launching into a nasty, brain-gouging word-rip about their cut-n-paste Emoricana, their Jack White-as-Jim Morrison front man, quite incredulous lyrics and half-hearted jumps from the stage. But I won’t. That would be unfair and uncharitable and I’ll leave it for others to do - others who might do this reviewing lark for a living and have deadlines and several other gigs to scribble about. The ‘Phantom do sound very American, though, it has to be said, and the J White yelps are immediately apparent. They do, however, retain enough interest with plenty of odd time-shifts and their singular bass / baritone bass guitars. There’s a Lightning Bolt-lite aspect to them, which is no bad thing. It should be, but you’ll have to take my word for it when I say it isn’t. It’s hard to pin down why it works, but it does. Perhaps it’s the fact that you’re seeing the Strokes’ ‘jazz odyssey’ period on some really good mushrooms. Or the Doors mainlining Nietzsche. On some really good mushrooms. Whatever – go and see them. They may bring your bad mood to life. | | | | My bad mood, while not perhaps brought to life, was certainly severely prodded by The Notorious Hi-Fi Killers. One Lenny Kravitz is bad enough. The world does not need another. Certainly not one who looked like he may have been in a certain Designer Babies outfit not so long ago. There were a couple of moments which distracted one from the fact that we were watching a chap nobbing an SG for half an hour but they turned out to be old T Rex riffs, which was kind-of inevitable. As was the warped paean to Hendrix – up went the Postman Pat Gibson to his mouth in the final number. Whether he was chewing the strings a la Jimi or simply screaming into the pickups was indistinguishable from where I was, I’m afraid. Still, the chicks were digging it. At least I assume they were – hard to tell with these cool cat crowds. | | | | After the cod drama of the ‘Killers, it was a great relief to get back to some genuine fun and good humour from the ever-lovely Lords, reaching their gig century. It is with great glee that I report to you the quality of their new material, so the new album should be more quality good-time swamp. One such number was even titled this very evening – Creatures. There were others; ‘Situation’ was one, I remember. Kicking off with the vroom of …Dancing Like a Russian, we were rollicked through another great set of a band who, along with Bilge Pump, seem to be unique at the moment in finding something new and exciting in what could otherwise be seen as moribund musical forms; the blues or blues/rock, whatever you want to call it. They closed the set proper with Pint of Wine, of course, which still appears on the set list as simply ‘Zep’. To my ears, it’s more the psycho-bastard son of La Grange. No matter – if Harvey Goldsmith could send his reptilian glance their way before trying to lick Princess Leia once more, he would see that he can keep his £125 charidee-tribute mega-dome money-mountains. Lords are where the smart pennies are. Rock rock rock! |
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