Review: Fight Like Apes at Norwich Arts Centre, 28/11/11

Fight Like Apes at Norwich Arts Centre, 28/11/11 (support from Fever Fever & Cut Ribbons)

Genre: Synth-pop, indie rock

Kicking off this remarkably dead show at the Arts Centre were Welsh band Cut Ribbons. They play fairly non-descript indie rock, distinguished only by their dual male/female vocals. Even that interesting difference didn't show up too well in their performance (balance seemed a bit squiffy), but the set was pretty good and it seemed a bit of a shame there weren't more people there to see them. The Arts Centre's fairly small but even so it was barely half full by the time Cut Ribbons finished playing.

By the time Norwich natives Fever Fever took to the stage, however, the crowd had definitely bulked up. The show was also their single launch, so they obviously had a fair few fans there. It was immediately obvious why they seem to have such a dedicated fanbase. Their set was amazing. For three people, they make a hell of a lot of very good noise. And they were evidently enjoying themselves, throwing in a lot of banter with the crowd and each other. Brilliant, hyperactive art punk at its raucous best. Check out the free track Teeth here: http://feverfever.bandcamp.com/track/teeth

Following on from that amazingly energetic set, the headliners had a lot to live up to. It's been three years since I first saw Fight Like Apes. Back then, they were the support for The Ting Tings. They sucked me in with their rather anarchic, high energy set. This show definitely didn't disappoint. Non-stop and bloody loud. And yet the room still wasn't full and the crowd barely seemed bothered. Until lead vocalist MayKay wandered off into the audience, that is. All of a sudden, the smallest mosh pit I have ever seen appeared. Finally, finally people seemed to be paying attention to what was an amazing show. With a couple of new tracks thrown in and a set that crept past curfew without anyone seeming to care, Fight Like Apes might just have won over some new fans. I hope they did. They certainly deserve it.

Fight Like Apes setlist:

Do You Karate?, Poached Eggs, Hoo Ha Henry, Katmandu, Lend Me Your Face, Jenny Kelly, Digifucker, Jake Summers, Thirsty, Tie Me Up With Jackets, Battlestations (+ 2 new tracks)

Encore: Megameanie, Ice Cream Apple Fuck

And as an added bonus, have some crappy photography, courtesy of my phone.

And as a final note: SQUEE at the remarkably cheap (i.e. reasonably priced) merch. Woot for band t-shirts and CDs.

Band of the Week: Fight Like Apes

Ahh, Fight Like Apes. Full of mad energy and bizarre song titles, they make music that makes you move. Madly. I discovered them by accident when they played support to The Ting Tings in my first week at uni. I'd missed out on most of the Freshers Week stuff (largely cos I couldn't give a damn about Freshers) so I got myself a ticket to see The Ting Tings at the end of the week instead. This was the beginning of my addiction to gigs, by the way. Anyway, I wasn't expecting anything like Fight Like Apes. I'd only been to pop gigs before - Busted, Atomic Kitten - in medium/big venues. The LCR at my uni holds about 1500 people max. It was brilliant. FLA filled the room with all their mad energy, really got the crowd hyped up. And to be honest, I much preferred their performance over The Ting Tings. As it turns out, I don't really like The Ting Tings that much any more, but FLA... well, I think it's clear I'm head over heels in love with them.

They play a kind of, electro-pop, punk, shoegaze blend. Heavy on the synths and random samples from b-movies (they love b-movies) and infused with a chaotic energy. Vocalist MayKay drifts between shrieking and gorgeous softer vocals. And the lyrics... oh so odd. Wonderfully odd. I only got their second album a few days ago, thanks to the Australian iTunes store finally getting it in. There's a track on there called "Pull Off Your Arms and Let's Play In Your Blood". I kid you not. Thing is though, the synths and the strange sing-song quality to MayKay's voice make it so much less sinister than it should be. If anything, it's funny as hell.

Which brings me to another thing that I love about FLA - they make me smile. They make me laugh. They are the best thing to put on when I'm feeling shit. Take Something Global and Indie Monster - both taking swipes at indie hipster types and so wonderfully funny in the process. Or "I'm Beginning To Think You Prefer Beverly Hills 90210 To Me" - it's chorus consists almost solely of "You're fired" but it makes me smile so much.

My favourites have got to be Battlestations and Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues. Battlestations because it's strangely stress relieving, wonderfully cathartic to just sing/scream along with. Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues because it's such a bizarre, madly energetic track. I do believe it's a cover of a McLusky track - I looked it up and I definitely prefer FLA's version.

Hmmm, what else to say? Other that I'm obviously a complete fangirl about FLA. That's it, really. So, check 'em out, let me know what you think and pass it on.

Assorted Fight Like Apes links:
Myspace
Last.fm

Recommended tracks:
From Fight Like Apes and the Mystery Of The Golden Medallion: Battlestations, Digifucker, Something Global, Tie Me Up With Jackets
From The Body Of Christ and the Legs Of Tina Turner: Hoo Ha Henry, Indie Monster, Pull Off Your Arms and Let's Play In Your Blood, Waking Up With Robocop, Ice Cream Apple F**k

Review: Above The Noise by McFly

'K, so I'm actually beginning to write this before I even have the album. Partly because I'm bored as hell, mainly because I'm ridiculously over excited about getting my hands on the damn thing. OK, so not physically getting my hands on it, because it's a download, but I know what I mean.

Bahahahaha, I have it. Please bear in mind I wrote this after only 2 play-throughs, so I'm bound to pick up on different stuff after I've listened to it a bit more. Also, this is getting posted in a couple of other places, so if it reads a bit funny, that's why. Here goes.

Behold, I actually got my arse in gear and wrote a review for the first time in weeks. Happy times all round. Plus, I’ve been waiting ages for this damn album. Prepare for babbles and rambling and general fangirl-ishness.

Firstly, much as I was looking forward to hearing Above The Noise, I was a little apprehensive. I heard Party Girl months back and I hated it. I honestly couldn’t stand it. It sounded way too much like one of my favourite bands had jumped on the electro-pop bandwagon. I’ve been hoping Above The Noise wouldn’t just be more of the same. I am happy to say that it’s not. It’s made of epic awesome and has totally restored my faith in McFy.

So, OK, it doesn’t have so much of the rock edge that previous albums, particularly Radio: ACTIVE, have had, but it’s not as electro-poppy as I thought it might be. The synth elements are strong, but they’ve been used in harmony with the stronger rock elements. I noticed this particularly on End Of The World, the opening track and this rather set the tone for the rest of the album. Party Girl is still stronger on the electro/dance elements that I would like, but it’s finally started growing me. And hey, it fulfils its purpose – it makes me want to dance. I dread to think what my housemate thought when I was prancing madly around my bedroom listening to it earlier. He already thinks I’m mad (he’s right, but shush). Although, I have to agree with a number of other people – that opening does sound awfully like Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the fact that when I first heard it, I thought I’d got the wrong thing playing isn’t a good thing either. If U C Kate is a good enough song in itself, but I wish bands wouldn’t play around with the “not-so-subtly-hidden-expletives” in song titles. It’s not original in the slightest, and the song doesn’t really call for it. It’s a lovely, almost laidback track and I’ve noticed a number of people pointing out that The Script have a song called If You See Kay, which was only released in 2008. They could’ve given the track a different, more original name and it would’ve avoided a lot of confusion.

Then there’s the simply magical Shine A Light. Not much to say here – I love it. It’s more like the McFly I grew up loving. So there’s still that electro element, but it’s smaller and it fits nicely into the track. Never thought I’d like a track with Taio Cruz in it, but this song has proved me wrong. Just a stunningly beautiful track.

All in all, a wonderful album. I don’t rate it as highly as McFly’s past work, but I can see it growing on me. A lot. Stand out tracks are Shine A Light, Nowhere Left To Run and This Song. I can’t resist a good 5 minutes plus track.

Band of the Week: Cobra Starship

Ah, Cobra Starship. Synth-pop, alternative-ish stuff, for those who don't know who they are. I love them. A lot. Cobra were one of the first bands I started listening to when I really started getting in to music of a more alternative nature. My sister recommended them and I just about fell in love as soon as I heard their cover of I Kissed A Girl (renamed to I Kissed A Boy).

There's something wonderful about Cobra Starship. They make music with alternative leanings, but it's still pop enough to appeal to the mainstream. It's music that makes you smile and makes you get up and move. They're not afraid to be silly, either. All in all, it's just wonderfully danceable music.

But, up until early last year, they could still couldn't be counted as mainstream. Pop-influenced, yes, but the mainstream hadn't really got hold of them. That changed with the release of their latest album, Hot Mess, and its lead single, Good Girls Go Bad. I can but presume that some of this sudden jump into the mainstream was due to the fact that Leighton Meester of Gossip Girl fame provided guest vocals on Good Girls Go Bad. Gossip Girl appears to be quite ridiculously popular, so I'm guessing a load of fans of the show decided to check the song out. Obviously, I'm not sure, but I think it's a reasonable assumption. What I do know is that all of a sudden, people knew who Cobra were. A friend of mine who'd never shown any interest in the band before asked me if I had the single. I told him no, because I was waiting for the album and asked him what he knew of the band. He told me he'd only heard Good Girls Go Bad because it was on Radio 1. I asked if he'd heard any of their other tracks and he said no. Now, it might just be me, but if I hear a track by a band or artist and I like it, I check out some of their other work, on the basis that if I do, I'll buy an album instead because it's better value. Very rarely do I just buy a single track. Anyway, getting side-tracked.

My friend's request should really have alerted me to what was going to happen when Cobra hit the mainstream. Oh yes. Suddenly, Cobra are popular. Cobra are cool. Therefore, it makes you cool to like Cobra. The dreaded scenies. I will clarify, because I know scenies means different things to different people. To me, scenies are those people who like a band/artist simply because they're cool/popular/their friends like them. It is possible for scenies to like a band because the band is awesome, but in my definition, this tends to come as an after-effect.

Now, I have no problem with bands that I like becoming popular. Good on them. It's great that Cobra Starship are enjoying more success. I dislike that in this case, I suspect that the success is due less to the fact that they're an amazing band and more to the fact that they had a popular actress do guest vocals on the single. I love Hot Mess, the most recent album, but in my opinion it wasn't as good as the first two. This is unusual for me - normally I can see the progression in band's album and either rate them better or at least equal to previous efforts. I can't help but think that this is because, to me, the album seems to be aimed at the mainstream. Aside from Leighton Meester's appearance on Good Girls Go Bad, there's also B.o.B's appearance on The World Will Never Do and Flo Rida on a remix of GGGB. The whole thing seems geared to a wider, chart-loving audience. The music itself is good, still very obviously Cobra Starship, but it seems to be lacking something from the first two albums.

I finally got the chance to see them live in February this year. I took my friend Claire as a Christmas/birthday present for her and we loved it. Amazing gig. So much energy, from the band and from the crowd and a set with a good proportion of older tracks. And that caused something that really made me smirk. They played The Church Of Hot Addiction and I swear a huge portion of the crowd simply stopped singing along. A little in the voice in the back of my head started chanting "Scenie scenie scenie". I was so...amused, let's say. Not happy, because it upsets me that people don't check out bands' older album material. But amused covers it nicely.

We got to see them afterwards too. It was Claire's first gig and she wanted her shirt signing, so we toddled round to wait for them to come out. I was tired, my feet were in pain from my Doc Martens and I had an early train to catch the next day, so I really wasn't too keen on hanging around for ages. Plus, I have a phobia of crowds. I can cope with gigs because I get lost in the music, but just hanging around in a small crowd waiting for the band to emerge was really pushing it. So when the band finally came out, Claire turns to me, asks if I'm OK, to which I reply no and she says, I know what'll make it better - look, there's Ryland. That made me smile. What really made me smile though, was when Gabe Saporta, the vocalist, turned up. There he is, going round, signing stuff, hugging people, taking photos, telling people he's drinking man beer when in fact it's some sort of lager. I'm trying to get out of the mass of people because I'm pretty close to having some sort of panic attack at this point and Gabe sees me and says "I'm sorry, did I miss you?". Oh, how my inner fangirl reacted to that. Half my brain managed to form the lovely coherent sentence of "No, I'm fine thanks" and the other half started screaming "OHMYGODGABESAPORTASPOKETOME". The result of this was that instead of actually saying "No, I'm fine thanks" it came out as a sort of strangled squeak. Embarrassment at the time, hilarious afterwards.

Anyways, moving on. I love Cobra Starship. They make me smile, they cheer me up when I'm down and they make me dance. For those wonderful feelings, I can put up with the scenies. So, check 'em out, let me know what you think and pass it on.

Assorted Cobra Starship links:
Official Site
MySpace
Last.FM

Recommended tracks (album):
The Church Of Hot Addiction, Pop-Punk Is Sooooo '05, You Can't Be Missed If You Never Go Away (from While The City Sleeps, We Rule The Streets)
Guilty Pleasure, One Day Robots Will Cry, The World Has Its Shine, Smile For The Paparazzi, Prostitution Is The World's Oldest Profession (And I, Dear Madame, Am A Professional) (from Viva La Cobra)
Nice Guys Finish Last, Pete Wentz Is The Only Reason We're Famous, Hot Mess, New Edition (b-side), The Scene Is Dead - Long Live The Scene (from Hot Mess)