The New Pornographers are not, by any measure, an amazing live band. They won’t stun you with their remarkable musicianship or innovative live arrangements. They won’t leave you marvelling at their sharp, Wildean banter, nor sweep their audience away in a near-religious rapture. But, if you accept the fact that they won’t change your life, they’re still a dependably fun night out.
Taking the ‘simple-and-loud’ approach to their repertoire, their songs don’t differ in any appreciable way to their recorded versions except, perhaps, the volume, which is uniformly loud and cheerfully unsubtle. AC Newman, the band’s talented but static frontman initially sounds like he’s singing with a sock in his mouth, thanks to the Koko’s suspect acoustics but things quickly improve for what is a polished, if unadventurous reel through the hits. Their superior power-pop carried well in a setlist well-balanced between material from new album Challengers and classics like From Blown Speakers and A Testament To Youth In Verse, but what made the show better than the sum of its parts was the audience. With an admirable lack of hipster reserve, the crowd happily bopped and sang along to Newman’s famously unintelligible lyrics, and the fantastic Bleeding Hearts Show unexpectedly got the whole venue moving. Finishing on the brash and bouncy My Slow Descent Into Alcoholism ensured the show ended on a high and even though no single moment came close to genuine brilliance, it seemed everyone left with a smile on their face. Which is something you need from time to time.
Oh, and Newman’s niece/keyboardist is cute as a button. Probably should stop leching over members of Canadian indie bands, ahem...
THE HANDSOME FURS (London The Fly, 06/10/07)
They cancelled because of visa problems, so I went home and drowned my sorrows in cheesecake.
No comments:
Post a Comment