SHOCK & AWE + DAVE? + THE GETDOWNS + THE DESCARTES - Westport Bar, Dundee 09-03-07
The first Dead Earnest promotion of 2007, always something to treasure, was made extra special this time, by virtue of being a collaboration - a first for Dead Earnest - with our good friend Salty from Salty Records. He suggested The Deascartes and Dave? while I suggested Shock & Awe and The Getdowns, a bill, we felt, worthy of our judgement. Clearly a lot of Dundee thought so too as we had a really sizeable turnout for the event - so thanks to everyone that came!
Edinburgh's Shock & Awe made a welcome return to Dundee since their debut performance at The Balcony Bar, and the trio - with fellow sax player on three tracks - provided a rip-roaring set of punk tracks that averaged a running time of somewhere around two minutes a-piece, and positively bamboozled an audience who were being given tracks with the efficiency and effectiveness of rifle-fire. "This one's based around the works of Jean-Paul Satre" said the vocalist and guitarist, introducing one piece - 25 seconds later, it was over! "This one's going to be on a forthcoming tribute album to The Ramones" he announced as a searing slice of fast-paced punk hurtled into life. For The Ramones are probably the one band - or certainly the main band - that you think of when seeing this group play, and while it's not a carbon copy, it has all the humour, heat and hard rocking energy of that band, with some great lyrics in there too, when you could make them out. A cracking opening set and they were greeted warmly too - here's hoping for a return sometime.
Dave? I described in the promotional blurb as something like combining The View, Nirvans, Television and The Magic Band in a blender and them being the result. Well, tonight's set was way more than that - tonight, to their biggest and wholly enthusiastic audience to date, that were there to see this band primarily, they practically deconstructed indie rock and put it back together somewhere in a parts-unknown parallel universe. You have to bear in mind that I waas doing the door while at the same time trying to hear and see what Dave? were doing, which is why this review is not going to have detail in it. But I did most definitely hear Dave? play this barrage of tracks - the first three linked as though one almighty single entity - with a searing heat of dual guitar fire, that really did put The View in a mincer and come out smiling. They play tracks that are so intense, so riveting, travle places that you just didn't know existed and yet, at the same time, are the stuff of solid indie-rock heaven. There's hardly a chorus or hook in sight, and yet this band are spellbinding, playing real songs that have a hugeness to them and seem to tower above everything else, coming at you with all the meaning of a charging rhino, but mesmerising you as you wait to get mangled in their grip. But as the bassist throbs, pounds and thunders, while the drummer provides a supercharged foundation the twin guitarists twist and turn, then turn on you and unleash this massive slice of driving songs to perfection. It's amazing stuff, and you get the feeling that this band are the suprise in the Dundee pack, that with a decidedly growing and fanatical audience becoming ever more sizeable, that this band could leap out of the pack and take over - they are THAT hot - I have to see them again - and soon!
As you'll see if you look back at my concert reviews, I both loved and saw the potential of The Getdowns from the first time I saw them. I've loved what they do ever since and, although they've been playing many gigs, you got the feeling that the world wasn't taking them seriously enough - but at last things are coming together and they are being recognised more widely as the stunning band that I said they were - and are. A trio of Stu on guitar and vocals, Ben on bass and vocals with Gogs on drums, they've always played a set of enjoyable punk-rock songs with a twist of late sixties pop-psychedelia and mid-'60's shuffle, but with modern firepower, energetic performance and a great sense of humour. Lyrically they actually write some great material, ranging from clever to witty to sardonic and beyond. Stu has this kind of strangled mid-range vocal that actually suits the songs to perfection and gives the band even more of the identity it so richly deserves.So, they now start the set with this absolute belter of a track that veritably flies like a jet fighter before going on to deliver the anthemic and huge-sounding "Yeah!" with surging harmony vocals and the band playing as one incredibly tight unit as Stu scythes guitar riffs and solos like he's carving an image at high speed. They go onto deliver their now famous and infamous Getdowns classic - that has "hit" written all over it - in the form of "Proper Music", all the more furthered by the fact that most of the enthusiastic crowd were singing along with it, the lyrics so simple and yet so fecking clever, you wonder why noone thought of it before!! The punk reggae of "Number Fake" is irresistible while a couple of newer tracks possess all the energy and enhtusiasm of classic hi-octane pop-punk complete with guitar solos and thunderous rhythms at their heart. With an audience behind them, a set that's on fire and the band reaching a peak you'd not thought they'd have even dreamt of a while back, the band look at me and ask how many more they can play. I held a finger up and luckily they took it as "one more track". Now, this band have, for a long time, done a cover of The View's track that has the chorus "Screaming and shouting it" and whose title might be that, but right now I can't remember. Anyway, it's always gone down well and actually, at the risk of sacrilege, has been a more enjoyable version for me as well. So, they begin it - all is well, - then at around half eway what is meant to be a three minute song, they take a path that simply couldn't be predicted and wander into this black hole of what Zappa would have described as "The View Variations" as Stu goes into this intense half-chant, half, sung almost gospel-ish sea of lyrics as Ben on bass and Gogs on drums provide this powerhouse of bass and drums behind the guitar-less vocals - and the effect is jaw-dropping as the intensity climbs and climbs. Shortly the guitar enters as the pattern continues, but then it changes course as Stu starts to unleash this torrent of electrifying guitar leads as the band flies higher and higher. As it reaches a climax, the thing teeters on the brink and then dives right back into The View as the whole track comes crashing before you and surges ahead to an end point that leaves you breathless and utterly in awe at what you've just witnessed. It's unreal - and just stunning - and as a way to end the set, absolutely incredible. The Getdowns are, indeed, on fire - but theirs is a conflagration.
Although it's not my fault, I apologise to The Descartes for having to do the entirety of their set with the Westport fire alarm going off and noone knowing how the hell to turn it off!! Luckily, the band were louder than the alarm and the crowd only really noticed between tracks, so I hope (although I've not spoken with them yet) that it didn't ruin things for them. That aside, the band put in a steaming performance with dual guitars and dual vocals plus rhythm section really firing on all cylinders as their set proved to go from strength to strength. Now, I've only seen the Descartes once, possibly twice, and am not whooly familiar with their tracks. I do like what they do but I would need to hear more before feeling able to give you a blow-by-blow review, and tonight, with the alarm, the door and everything else, was not that night. But the facts remain that this is a guitars-driven band with an almost U2-ish feel only way more sizzling, and they have a decidedly enthusiastic local following which has increased since last time I saw them, so things are also on an upward trend for the band. Myself, I really need to see them under "normal" circumstances to give them a fair review - but for now, they were worthy of headline slot and I hope they felt OK about all that went down. Thanks guys!!
As I was leaving the event, I was told that the latest of the series of "Club NME" gigs that had happened just a few days before, "attracted about 12 people" to it. The NME contributors would have gone nuts and into total ecstasy if they'd been here tonight - methinks they should look Dundee way if they want to boast a real event worthy of the legendary name - in my humble opinion, of course!!