Something Wicked This Way Comes
The Bravery - are they all they're cracked up to be? Well last night I headed off to Camden to check 'em out.
They've had so much hype that if they didn't have the songs to back it up they would be laughed out of town - and fortunately for them they had a set full of blistering, crowd-pleasing dancefloor rock tracks. Koko (as Camden Palace is now known - a superb venue it is now too) fairly crackled with anticipation before the band appeared, and by the witching hour I was getting pretty excited myself.
The anticpation was deserved... to a certain extent. I have to admit they belted out the tunes, and sent the dancefloor downstairs into a pogo-ing frenzy. Obviously 'Honest Mistake' was the one everyone knew, since it's in the top ten at the moment.... however I certainly wasn't the only one there to have grabbed a sneaky copy of the album from the net. Most people seemed to recognise every song - and 'Honest Mistake' certainly isn't their only good track. Pretty much everything from the first half of the album in particular went down extremely well.
But..
I really wasn't feeling their performance at all. They had obviously spent a LOT of time in front of mirrors getting ready for this moment, getting the rockstar moves down to a tee. A bit of Sid Vicious here, a bit of Pete Townshend there, a bit of The Strokes, a bit of Robbie Williams (!). Seriously they must have squeezed every single rock star pose I have ever seen into one set.
Mic stand behind the head? Check
Standing on the monitors? Check
Standing on the bass drum? Check
Bassist with legs unfeasibly wide apart? Check
Spraying the crowd with water? Check
Diving into the crowd? Check
Holding the mic over the crowd & getting them to sing the chorus? Check
Spitting out water in a photogenic arc? Check
Guitarist centre stage for his solo? Check
and of course.... Smashing up the drum kit at the end? Check
What really put me off was that for two entire songs a scrum of about a dozen photographers wrestled to stick their cameras up the singers' nose... they were there a long time, and as the band took it in turns to stand in front of the cameras and pull their rock star shapes I was starting to feel that they were performing for the cameras rather than for us paying punters. They certainly lost any connection I was feeling with the band, and after the photographers disappeared I started to see their posturing as rather tiresome.
There is something a bit TOO perfect about the whole set up. It's as if a supercomputer was fed the entire history of rock music and set to work in creating the ideal band... however despite all the calculations and mathematics there is still some indefinable sense of humanity (love?) that a computer can't replicate.
I wouldn't usually be so critical of a band who haven't even released their first album yet... however I think by inviting that many photographers in they provoke the criticism. It felt like I was watching a Duran Duran video.
By the end of the set, I starting thinking 'they're going to smash up the drums aren't they', I did have to stifle a yawn when they inevitably did it. The girls in front of me squealed with excitement though, so you have to bear in mind that my jaded perspective of events didn't seem to tally with most of the audience. I can assure you that based on the reaction they received, they'll be going B-I-G this year - and despite my criticisms I left the gig humming their songs, and woke up this morning stil humming their songs.
THE BRAVERY - FEARLESS
Oh, and sorry about the lack of pictures (oh the irony) 1: I forgot my camera 2: I still don't have internets at home so have had to knock this out at work
Tomorrow night : Bloc Party
:-D
They've had so much hype that if they didn't have the songs to back it up they would be laughed out of town - and fortunately for them they had a set full of blistering, crowd-pleasing dancefloor rock tracks. Koko (as Camden Palace is now known - a superb venue it is now too) fairly crackled with anticipation before the band appeared, and by the witching hour I was getting pretty excited myself.
The anticpation was deserved... to a certain extent. I have to admit they belted out the tunes, and sent the dancefloor downstairs into a pogo-ing frenzy. Obviously 'Honest Mistake' was the one everyone knew, since it's in the top ten at the moment.... however I certainly wasn't the only one there to have grabbed a sneaky copy of the album from the net. Most people seemed to recognise every song - and 'Honest Mistake' certainly isn't their only good track. Pretty much everything from the first half of the album in particular went down extremely well.
But..
I really wasn't feeling their performance at all. They had obviously spent a LOT of time in front of mirrors getting ready for this moment, getting the rockstar moves down to a tee. A bit of Sid Vicious here, a bit of Pete Townshend there, a bit of The Strokes, a bit of Robbie Williams (!). Seriously they must have squeezed every single rock star pose I have ever seen into one set.
Mic stand behind the head? Check
Standing on the monitors? Check
Standing on the bass drum? Check
Bassist with legs unfeasibly wide apart? Check
Spraying the crowd with water? Check
Diving into the crowd? Check
Holding the mic over the crowd & getting them to sing the chorus? Check
Spitting out water in a photogenic arc? Check
Guitarist centre stage for his solo? Check
and of course.... Smashing up the drum kit at the end? Check
What really put me off was that for two entire songs a scrum of about a dozen photographers wrestled to stick their cameras up the singers' nose... they were there a long time, and as the band took it in turns to stand in front of the cameras and pull their rock star shapes I was starting to feel that they were performing for the cameras rather than for us paying punters. They certainly lost any connection I was feeling with the band, and after the photographers disappeared I started to see their posturing as rather tiresome.
There is something a bit TOO perfect about the whole set up. It's as if a supercomputer was fed the entire history of rock music and set to work in creating the ideal band... however despite all the calculations and mathematics there is still some indefinable sense of humanity (love?) that a computer can't replicate.
I wouldn't usually be so critical of a band who haven't even released their first album yet... however I think by inviting that many photographers in they provoke the criticism. It felt like I was watching a Duran Duran video.
By the end of the set, I starting thinking 'they're going to smash up the drums aren't they', I did have to stifle a yawn when they inevitably did it. The girls in front of me squealed with excitement though, so you have to bear in mind that my jaded perspective of events didn't seem to tally with most of the audience. I can assure you that based on the reaction they received, they'll be going B-I-G this year - and despite my criticisms I left the gig humming their songs, and woke up this morning stil humming their songs.
THE BRAVERY - FEARLESS
Oh, and sorry about the lack of pictures (oh the irony) 1: I forgot my camera 2: I still don't have internets at home so have had to knock this out at work
Tomorrow night : Bloc Party
:-D
posted by headphonesex @ 6:19 PM
