overlap

Ok, so I'm a few days behind. I'm now also a couple of glasses of cava down, so I reserve the right to come back and edit or remove this at a later time :-) But briefly, friday saw me make a nice transportly-challenged trip to London to go and see the Frank And Walters playing their first show in England in a number of years - for a moment or two it was 1993 again, and they were great. I'm surprised to find I hadn't seen them more than three times back in the mists of time, so they obviously left a good impression as I wouldn't have missed this show for anything. Saturday saw glorious morning sunshine through western central London, and fortunately I was just smart enough to avoid entering the traffic madness of Twickenham on a rugby day. Through a series of things that mostly didn't quite go as planned, I failed to make it to a social event that would have allowed me to make the most of my wardrobe, but no matter - it's really not the end of the world. Sunday? Well, an afternoon gig is an interesting thing I've not encountered before. When you see a guy in a suit and tie, in a trilby and nonchalantly smoking while playing an electric double bass, you know the intended visual effect is some arty late 1950s Parisian jazz cafe. Late at night in a rammed sweaty club it seems vaguely appropriate for what it's aimed at being, but at 1.30pm on a sunday when the streets outside are full of early xmas shoppers it seems utterly bizarre. And it's certainly not my preferred style of music anyway. You may well see them in the top forty come sunday, and The Pipettes would be a welcome addition to the nation's hit parade. Polka dots in a 50s circle skirt style, three women singers with some great hand jiving and still not quite as stage school rehearsed into perfection as yer average girl band. Think the Shirelles by way of Helen Love and you are not far away - tremendous stuff, love it. Life-affirming upbeat uptempo shallow pop music at its finest. Enough catching up, and enough cava!

Labels: gigs, The Frank And Walters, The Pipettes