|  Flamboyant Bella stood in for Kid British at Bournemouth's Old Fire Station | | Y'know
those birthday parties people throw when they're 17? The type when all
of the music is rubbish pop gibberish and the only alcohol is six Blue
WKDs between 20 people? And all the guests wind up watching MTV and
half-heartedly eating the Magic Roundabout birthday cake that someone
bought thinking they were being "wacky?"
The night was basically like that. The audience - all 23, I counted - arrived
and were treated to a pair of Relentless promoters attempting to become
human "Spirographs" with BMX bikes. After they'd stopped and people were
waiting patiently for the bands to start playing, they started again,
for no readily apparent reason. While it is somewhat impressive at the
speed they move, you can't help but hope that one of the stunts goes
horribly wrong, just for sake of variety.
Headliners Kid
British, famed for their hit Our House is Dadless earlier this year,
pulled out of the gig - their singer apparently tucked up in bed with
flu, some Lemsip and a cuddly toy Eeyore. How rock 'n' roll. So to fill
the space their review would've taken up, here are the opening lyrics
to Quinn the Eskimo:
Ev'rybody's building the big ships and the boats,
Some are building monuments,
Others, jotting down notes,
Ev'rybody's in despair,
Ev'ry girl and boy
But when Quinn the Eskimo gets here,
Ev'rybody's gonna jump for joy.
Come all without, come all within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.
The
first act to actually play music was a solo act by the name of Shawnee,
who strolled on stage, announced he was from Manchester, and attempted
to be a one-man Oasis. While his playing was technically proficient, it
wasn't anything that can't be seen at a local Open-Mic night. The
highlight of his set was the introduction to his second song: "This is
called amnesia, it's about forgetting things." Those in the crowd all
count themselves lucky to have witnessed a man who is clearly the next
Oscar Wilde.
Following
the man with unmatchable wit, came local kids Better Dressed Then Adam,
who played a set which had some of the crowd moving, but largely had
all the appeal of a bucket of sick delivered by Charles Manson. The
music just droned on, with the singer either whining or screaming about
something. It was hard to tell what he was saying, so it can only be
assumed that his mum made him eat all his vegetables before he went
out. Their cover of the Sugababes' About You Now is worth a mention, if only because it results in continued edging towards suicide by fire.
Finally
Flamboyant Bella came on stage, having been bumped up to the headlining
position. The overriding feeling is one of pity, as the sound of the
guitar could've been the worst in recorded history - a screeching,
horrible, migraine-inducing twang. Were it not for this, their set may
have been very good, but nothing could be heard and the only way to
tell one song from another was the gap between them. The shame
increases as the band looked like they were enjoying themselves.
Although the guitarist and synth player looked disconcertingly like
Clark Kent from the old Superman films. Which was mildly off putting.
So benefit of the doubt gets the band off the hook, as behind the
terrible guitar sound they could've been truly awful. It essentially
becomes a musical version of Schrodinger's Cat, existing in a quantum
state of both brilliant and terrible, obscured by screeching guitar.
The whole gig can be summed up with a lyric from Shawnee - "It could be worse."
But only if the venue was attacked by mighty Cthulu halfway through the night.
Tom Flanagan | |