The return of rave

(Morning Star, Friday 09 February 2007)

LIVE: Klaxons/CSS/Sunshine Underground/New Young Pony Club, Sheffield Octagon

KIRSTIE MAY investigates the new rave phenomenon that's infecting dancefloors all over Britain this year.

The occurrence of the "new rave" phenomenon is ostensibly a terrifying event for those who remember old rave and, more specifically, for those who love music.

Who could celebrate the days of glowsticks and oversized dummies, surgical masks and hoodies?

There was an age when music lacked smarts and, crucially, heart.

With New Young Pony Club, one wonders if there's one member of the band who identifies with new rave.

Wearing their new romantic heart on their sleeves, they have the whiff of Duran Duran fronted by Tracey Emin.

But track Get Dancey is a surefire floorfiller and the overall set gives a pleasant glow to the unsuspecting crowd, most of whom are too young to remember anything before 1996.

But they're certainly not too young to realise that the Sunshine Underground are a bunch of chancers, tossing off a substandard set of dirges wherein the cowbell - yes, cowbell - is king.

Singer Craig Wellington, from Leeds, wears a menacing Top Man hoodie and has an arrogant persona- that's cribbed from Liam Gallagher. Piffle.

CSS are a band who revel in fun. Coming on draped in black sheets to the all too familiar strains of 1993 hit No Limits by Dutch chart-botherers 2Unlimited, singer Lovefoxxx discards her attire to eventually reveal the marginally less unsettling lilac lycra bodysuit which forms her second skin.

The Brazilians race through a set culled from their successful debut album and the underagers and ageing ravers alike find nowt at fault here, as Lovefoxx bounds like a demonic Jane Fonda, all flailing limbs and exuberance.

As a band of six, CSS really do fill out the stage and the arrival of Klaxons, a pitiful fourpiece, is a bit of a letdown.

But, with the magnetic stylings of singer Jamie Reynolds, the crowd quickly forgets all that came before.

To the untrained ear, their track The Bouncer would seem to have rave - the proper, no-brainer, old-school kind - stamped right through it like Blackpool rock.

Some wag in the crowd even throws one of the old-style Altern-8 face masks on the stage, which the guitarist toys with before deciding against it.

From Atlantis to Interzone is surely a lost dance classic of the early 1990s, packing a euphoric punch that any self-respecting noughties hitmakers should eschew at once.

Klaxons' trick, though, is to marry a set of harder dance with the sweet renderings of their own sounds - like current radio-friendly unit-shifter Golden Skans.

And that's how they disarm their audience, it seems, by wrongfooting their ear.

For every Four Horsemen of 2012 or Magick, stuffed full of rave goodness, there's a heartfelt plea from these four misfits, such as their glorious cover of Not Over Yet.

Klaxons are heralded by "those in the know" as the new rave figureheads who flew the coop before it took proper hold.

Well, whether they're pigeonholing themselves or not, they are heading up this bill, but, for them, labels are irrelevant - they're making tunes for music lovers.

No talent from new kids of rock

(Morning Star, Friday 09 February 2007)

LIVE: NME Indie Rock Tour, Sheffield Octagon

A SHOW featuring the newest rock kids on the block was always going to be bedlam. The event of the indie calendar, the NME Indie Rock tour, rolled into town with a kerfuffle and plenty of hairy boys, as Mumm-ra, The Horrors, The Automatic and The View came up against each other in Sheffield.

Unfortunately, Mumm-ra are about as uninspiring as a young band have any right to be. The single What Would Steve Do is pleasant enough, but there's a craving for innovation in the crowd here that just can't be sated by these Bexhill-on-Sea upstarts.

Next up, The Horrors show themselves to be a pale imitation of the goth bands that they so fervently wish to emulate, but their raft of vicious, spat-through songs and bouffant hairdos by art school prancing ponies actually works.

When Faris Rotter sings, it's easy to imagine that he hates himself as much as he deserves, and that's sort of endearing.

Single Sheena is a Parasite makes the impact here and the stories of riots ensuing at their shows seem all too accurate when the thrashing well and truly kicks off.

Welsh one-hit wonders The Automatic are a victory of the catchy chorus. Despite their gimmick of having two vocalists - one shouting incomprehensibly, one trilling tunefully - aligning them all too closely to Linkin Park, they have anchored themselves in the public consciousness with the infuriatingly singable Monster, which has every audience member in paroxysms of joy here.

But the rest of their efforts are, unfortunately, lacklustre, filtered-down versions.

Headliners The View (pictured) are this year's surprise hit - surprise, because there's no earthly way that these buffoons should have a recording contract, much less be allowed to peddle their sub-Oasis drivel to the honest music fans of Britain.

The event of Scouse-accented Kyle Falconer's puberty still appears to be some way off, but he and his band of miscreants are somehow dodging schooldays with nauseating Britpop rubbish such as current hit Same Jeans.

As trends go, it's been a long time since the NME set them. But, with the "talent" on show here tonight, it's clear that they're doing their damnedest to run their own once good name into the ground.