There is a theory that 80s memes are back in fashion. There are Reaganites in the Whitehouse, a Thatcherite in Number 10, and the prophecies of the smarter cyberpunk authors are coming true around our ears. Which means that the bands I saw on Friday night are well placed to take advantage.
The gig was at the Liverpool Guild of Students. Being a fool, I turned up at 7:30, the time on the ticket. No one was around. Soon enough I saw people who must be there for the gig: suits, ties, red shoes, brylcreamed hair in a side parting. I followed them into the bar. It was just me and them in there, then. Only later did I realise that they were one of the bands, Maximo Park. I like to think that the reason I wasn’t thrown out was that staff thought I was actually a band member.
Maximo Park turned out to be not half bad, but then I’m biased: their frontman is the frontman I’d like to be – a mixture of Jarvis Cocker, Bryan Ferry, and George Orwell, the avatar of rage-in-a-suit. They rattled through some suitable new-wave guitar songs.
Then the fun really began, when The Futureheads took the stage. A Futureheads gig is like being trapped in a washing machine with some rocks. Black-shirted rocks who stand in line and play guitar. They sound like The Clash gene-spliced with Billy Bragg, their songs are given titles like “A Picture of Dorian Gray”, and everything is undercut with dry Geordie wit. Furthermore, they succeeded in making me dance like an epileptic on speed. Suffice it to say that they come recommended.
There's more music-based insanity over at N.A.O.W.F.I.T., where Tom, following a challange laid down by myself, has written a surf-pop song entitled "Salt City".
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