Horror Show

4th June 2009
Concorde 2
The Horrors (w/ support from Factory Floor and Disconcerts)

Like a steady drip of mascara running down the plughole, they are converging. A mass of hairspray, pointy shoes and crushed black velvet, trickling inexorably south and east through the city of Brighton, to the doors of the Concorde 2. It’s eight in the evening on a bright summer’s night. The sun is still up, but something is awry. Among the picnicking families and sunbathing couples, they are there, everpresent, a steady tide heading east of the pier. There are scene kids on the beach. The Horrors are in town.

I must confess I never really knew what to make of the Horrors. I’ve never been one of those people to shun a band just for having the temerity to dress up – for if David Bowie, Siouxsie Sioux and Nicky Wire have taught us anything (and they have), it is that outrageous sartorial posturing is an integral part of the (leopard print) fabric of rock and roll. So what if they got an outrageous springboard into the British music press before they’d even released their first single? The band can hardly be blamed for the hyperactive hype machine that is our music industry. If anything they are to be admired for playing the system to their advantage.

What really matters, as always, is the tunes. Alright, so the ghost-train punk, Cramps stylings of their debut Strange House were hardly befitting any ‘saviours of British rock music’ tag that the Horrors were afforded, but the material they were producing was a damn sight more interesting than the Kooks of this world, and there was always an indication that they might have what it takes to justify at least some of the presumptuous fanfare. With their sophomore effort, overseen by the capable hands of Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, they seem to have done just that, with a leftfield turn into post punk and krautrock inspired territory that illustrates a desire in the band for a bit less style and a bit more substance.

The support acts for tonight’s show are wholly representative of that shift. Openers Disconcerts do the whole ramalama angular punk riffs thing with unbridled energy and enthusiasm. Unfortunately they are also pretty terrible, showing that producing two-minute bursts of abrasive noise is actually an art form that is harder than it looks. They were followed by Factory Floor, who opted for the more ominous industrial approach, building gradual crescendos over creeping bass grooves. Both represent an element of the Horrors’ back catalogue, but neither manage to do it quite as well as the headliners, although Factory Floor at least possess some of that trademark theatricality.

When the Horrors arrived it was to universal high-pitched myspace screams, proving that you can do what you like with the music as long as you still have those totally dreamy goth boys up on stage to make the tweenagers swoon. Relatively dressed down in an array of snappy black and white variations, they played a set almost entirely comprised of material from new album Primary Colours, only raiding the older stuff for the breathless encore of ‘Sheena Is A Parasite’ and ‘Count In Fives’. The standout was the less than obvious single ‘Sea Within A Sea’, eight minutes of pure Joy Division note-taking, interrupted by the sudden thrill halfway through of a neatly arpeggiated synth line that grew in stature until it consumed all before it. Whether they’re playing the old or the new, it is this intensity that is the common thread throughout their performance, and when the music swells, it is tough not to be drawn in by its impetuous volume. This is not to say that this was a perfect gig, far from it, but in live music, atmosphere is all, and the Horrors have that, at least, in spades.

Up Pip Brown, Tommy Sparks Down

19th May 2009
Digital, Brighton
Ladyhawke/Tommy Sparks


Any aspiring musician searching for the knack of how to ‘do’ pop whilst still retaining indie sensibilities and street cred would have done well to be at Ladyhawke’s packed out show at Digital Tuesday night. The evening was a veritable indie-pop 101 of ‘do’s’ and ‘do not’s’.

Lesson one – It doesn’t matter how good the songs are, how tight the band is, however catchy the melodies, it will all be in vain if your frontman is a charisma vacuum as huge as Tommy Sparks. As he strode out onto stage, all hair gel and lycra, announcing “I’m Tommy Sparks, and this is my beautiful band”, I felt a genuine pang of sympathy for the talented musicians who have to share a stage with this giant, unfounded ego. Every intriguing piece of electropop noise was brought crashing down to earth by his Butlins holiday rep schtick, his insistence on leading into each song with a grating “Oi-Oi-Oi” exercise in vocal numbskullery. A cover of Stardust’s 1998 hit “The Music Sounds Better With You”, that could with a bit of personality have been turned into an intriguing track, instead became an exercise in bland karaoke from a preening black hole of a man. Message to ‘the beautiful band’: get out now, you don’t deserve this.

Once Tommy had flounced off, and the stagehands had been in to tether and drag away his inflated sense of self-worth, there was a perplexing wait of almost an hour before the main act finally appeared. During this time it was as though all the energy were sapping out of the crowd, meaning that by the time Ladyhawke took to the stage, she would have to work hard to get the place jumping.

In the flesh, Pip Brown (why use a pseudonym if you have such a cool name?) doesn’t really come across as a pop phenomenon. Dressed down in a denim waistcoat, her blonde fringe obscuring her eyes, her interaction with the crowd was anything but T4 Beach Party. But there was something endearing in her nervous asides that captured a personality refreshingly opposed to her support act’s cruise ship histrionics and forced jollity. Opening the set with a trio of album tracks before dropping her first hit of the night (‘From Dusk Till Dawn’), she encountered a problem all too common amongst debut album success stories – a lack of material for her audience to sing along to. Until she has another album’s worth of songs and a few more hit singles under her belt, it’s going to be nigh on impossible for Ladyhawke to provide the kind of sustained energy needed for big, headline gigs.

It was not until the last four or five songs of her set that she began to roll out the big guns with ‘Paris Is Burning’, and the room really started moving. Finally the pop hooks began to come thick and fast, and by the time the band bounced off the stage, a palpable sense of goodwill left the audience on tenterhooks for the inevitable encore.

Inevitable, of course, because she had not yet played her biggest hit to date, the big, dumb, glorious romp of ‘My Delirium’. Whilst there could be hardly anyone in the room who didn’t know what was coming, Ladyhawke had one more trick up her sleeve, returning to the stage to belt out an impassioned Patti Smith number. For the few minutes of ‘Free Money’ she let go of her inhibitions just as much as her crowd had been willing to the whole evening, and her obvious enjoyment stirred those last reserves of energy among us for the big finish. And yet, when it came, this three-minute slice of indie disco perfection was curiously underwhelming. Brown seems to be tiring of ‘My Delirium’s status as the ‘big hit’ among her repertoire, and it was not infused with the same sense of glee with which she had owned someone else’s song minutes before. Whilst her enthusiasm may have been waning, however, the audience’s excitement still reached its crescendo, and it was impossible not to be swept along by the sugar rush grooves. If anything, by playing down her most famous song in favour of an obscure yet charming cover, Ladyhawke made herself a much more interesting proposition, for this reviewer at least. It is clear that she possesses a way with a grunge-pop melody, and her lack of interest in being seen as a ‘one-hit wonder’ hinted at further promise just waiting to be realised.