You’re Smiling Now But We’ll All Turn Into Demons
Like many opening acts nowadays, local support band You’re Smiling Now But We’ll All Turn Into Demons are at the mercy of the smoking ban – meaning they take the stage in front of a sparse audience. Which is a shame, as they’re a band who deserve to be heard by more people.
Don’t be fooled by the oh-so-post-rock band name, though – while there’s more than a hint of the sprawling architecture of mental instrumentalists like Mogwai in their work, the Demons are worshippers at the altar of the almighty riff. They build monoliths of unpretentious and endearingly geeky fuzz-rock, powered by old analogue effects pedals with all the dials maxed out.
Each song is a warm wall of saturated twangy guitar sounds, a glorious and all-encompassing racket pinned down by super-tight amphetamine drumming – like Mudhoney driving flat-out down a seemingly endless autobahn, with stoner-rock hooks and nuggets of pure melody lurking in the undergrowth. Their complete lack of rock-star pretension completes the package perfectly – when they’re playing, they’re lost in the moment, but between songs they almost look embarrassed to be up there.
The Dirty
The same cannot be said of tour support The Dirty (who I would provide a link for, if it weren’t for their impossible-to-Google band name). They’re a four-piece sleazy garage rock and roll act, their music driven by simple drum patterns, based on bar chords and blues scale riffs. The vocalist has a sort of aloof charisma, an air of overblown theatrics that matches well with his waist-coat and teddy jacket outfit and artfully scraggled hair. He makes a lot of effort to win over the crowd.
Unfortunately, it just isn’t working. The hall has filled up quite a bit since the Demons were on, but the audience just aren’t clicking with The Dirty’s performance. A few cryptic asides between songs suggest that there may be some issues with the sound on stage, and a Monday evening is never the best time for a rock and roll show (especially the day after the clocks go back), but whatever the cause, The Dirty can’t seem to get off the launch pad.
The singer tries to goad the audience into some sort of response, but the veneer of coolness is too thin to disguise his frustration at their passivity. It’s a shame – their music holds all the promise of being high-octane rock and roll fronted by a crazed blues-man street preacher. But it’s not to be, at least not tonight, and the band leave the stage with a few sarcastic admonitions after what appears to be a drastically curtailed set. No one seems too bothered.
The Eighties Matchbox B-line Disaster
It’s been a long wait for the return of The Eighties Matchbox B-line Disaster. Their last album came out in 2004, and in the interim the musical landscape has changed considerably, becoming full of bands who are aping parts of their visual style and devoid of bands who sound anything like them.
That said, the foppish London trendies who wear cravats and tease their hair can’t match the glorious faux-Victoriana graveyard chic of Eighties Matchbox; these guys don’t just accessorise, they clamber into an entire persona, a band-wide aesthetic of hedgerow hairdos and mismatched formal wear that is coherent and chaotic at once. Much like their music, come to think of it.
After a few bars of rumbling bass-heavy intro, front-man Guy McKnight is over the barrier and wandering through the crowd, alternately screaming “die!” and rambling out his sonorous high-speed monologue lyrics. It’s at this point you realise that The Dirty’s on-stage demise may not have entirely been their own fault – the crowd are far from hostile, but there’s not what you’d describe as buckets of enthusiasm sloshing around either, as Guy makes it back to the stage without being distracted or hijacked so much as once.
Eighties Matchbox aren’t going to give up easily though, and valiantly work the crowd while they play through a selection of tunes both old and new. As always, the mainstay of their material is schlock-horror rockabilly basslines and clattering rumble-thump drum beats underneath phased guitars, the soundtrack to some fever-dream road-rally to hell and back. Top and centre is Guy’s schizoid vocal performance, hair-trigger switching between his zombie Elvis low-end mumble and the incoherent screeching of a demon deprived of its diet of souls.
They’re holding back the better-known hits for later; the early half of the set seems to be all album tracks or new material. The latter seems to be taking a slower and more cerebral approach; still dripping with authentic Munsters-on-acid doom and gloom, but relying less on the frantic pace and wild-eyed hysteria of the earlier material. Perhaps because of the long hiatus since last they toured, the audience is impatient for the classics and clamours for them between songs, and it’s plain to see the band are finding it hard work to please them, which must be a real downer on the first night of a national tour.
Things loosen up considerably with a rendition of “Mister Mental”, with Guy standing on the handrail of the stage barrier and the band attacking their instruments with gusto. There’s an almost palpable sea-change in the atmosphere, with a distinct raising of energy levels – band and audience are finally connected, and this seems to add extra fuel to the lysergic insanity of the stage show. The other early hits - “Psycho Safari” and “Celebrate Your Mother” - close the set, and the audience are fired up enough to get the band to return for a one song encore. It’s all worked out in the end – but rarely have I seen a band work this hard for their applause.
It may be that, despite their singular talents, Eighties Matchbox have had their time in the sun already; the retro rock and roll fad has been displaced by the glamour and smugness of the London scene, and there is a notable lack of “the kids” in tonight’s audience. That would be a shame, though – British rock music has a history replete with great bands of great character, and The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster should surely be included on that list. If they aren’t, it certainly won’t be for lack of effort.
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Posted in Live reviews |
Tags: blues, Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster, psychobilly, psychosis, punk, rock, You're Smiling Now But We'll All Turn Into Demons
