Saturday, May 15, 2010

There Must Be More To Life*

Having blown out two gigs for which I had tickets, one in favour of enjoying the election spectacle unfolding on the telly and one where the cost of transport to use the ticket would still have been more than another ticket for the show added later but closer to home, I'm back in the game with two gigs in three nights.

Sometimes it's the slightly less familiar that makes things a lot more interesting.

Duke Special's latest release is a three album special based around some interesting works of art, variously from the silver screen, the stage and classic literature. With so much new material on show, the only familiar tunes aired are a cover of Elton John's I'm Still Standing and his own Digging An Early Grave. Although I've had the new triple set some weeks, it's fair to say it mostly didn't leap out at me as the most fun I've ever had. Ben SonOfRoy Castle's comedy antics in a pair of glasses that make him look like a young Griff Rhys Jones notwithstanding.

My schedule has for some weeks had marked on it a band I never saw in the olden days, and who I never expected to see live. I've a couple of their singles, but that's it, and they haven't done live shows in twenty years, so I was quite excited to see what the modern rejuvenated version of We've Got a Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It might have to offer.

In a venue I haven't visited in a bit over three years, I'm reminded what the alternative to the slick and reliable yet curiously unexciting Academy circuit is, in the shape of a late start by support act Fitness Club Fiasco; a four-piece doing electronic pop somewhere between Blink's synth rhythms and Captain's male-female vocal mix - took a little while to get going but I quite warmed to them in the end.

A no hurry changeover saw the current five woman line-up of Fuzzbox take the stage after a slight delay, and then wait for a few more mintues for Sarah's bass set up to come to life. By which time we'd forgotten the intro tape, Maggie had talked a load of rubbish, and so we started all over again. International Rescue wasn't the liveliest start, but it really got going with Rules And Regulations, though the shambolic intro comedy banter kept going throughout. While it's obvious that Vix is a fantastic performer in her own right, it's when Maggie comes out from behind her keyboard and together they form the most effective front pairing to come out of the Midlands since Clint and Graham from PWEI. See the original vintage video for Love Is The Slug for the half-arsed "choreographed" footwork spectacle we were treated to, and how well Vix and Maggie work together.






 <<== Maggie
                      Jo and Vix ==>>







While the crowd have a whale of a time, it's obvious that from Jo's pink Kramer on one side to Sarah's highly improbable heels on the other, there's just as much fun being had on stage as there is watching. And if a twenty year reunion for the fun of it didn't turn out like this, there would be something wrong, but tonight you can stand down International Rescue as they are doing absolutely fine on their own. Fantastic.

* There Must Be More To Life is part of the hook from Fuzzbox smash Rules And Regulations

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