Did you only notice The Arctic Monkeys when they boogie woogied with Jools Holland?
Forced to shell out £80 to some ebay chancer just for the first 7″, and the chance to claim you were into them before they became the hottest band of 2005.
Well I could almost say nows your second chance…….. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah certainly rival “lindsey lohan+naked” on the google search results front, but they’ve already sold 25,000 copies of their self released CD, and the blog swarm have apparently moved onto The Rumble Strips.
The only answer is to face facts, unless you’re 15 and don’t leave your internet connected bedroom, you will ALWAYS be behind…. there are groups who are still at the “Bassist required for cool new band” stage, and are already considered passe. Face it, if you have a job then give up, relax, log in, download, and just enjoy the music.
Tickets for Clap Your Hands Say Yeahs UK tour have as the Guardian put it “disappeared faster than Stella McCartney dresses from H&M”, so those lucky enough to squeeze into the Metro Club for this “secret” warm up are definitely “up for it” by the time CYHSY take to the stage. Well I say take to the stage, they actually wander on individually, stand around chatting by the side for a while, swig a few bears, eye the audience….. as if they’d gone upstairs to get something…reached the top and thought “what was it I came here for here again’” … oh yeah…. gig!
The CYHSY album will be in many of the year end best of polls, and not without reason. Art-Rock hasn’t been this much fun in a while. The nay-sayers dismiss them as sounding like Talking Heads or as I read recently The Arcade Fire fronted by David Bryne, but what can I say…I like Talking Heads, and it is after all only rock music. If you want groundbreaking sounds don’t go see a guitar band… Rock has been eating itself for 30 years, but if its this good who cares.
While trawling the internet for reviews and photos (can I recommend Max Tollworthys excellent pics of the night) I came across comments from the support act “The Loungs” that CYHSY “were apparently a little thrown off by the gig itself which they didn’t seem too happy with”. I have to say it didnt look like they were enjoying most of the show.
Keyboardist, guitarist and tambourine shaker Robbie Guertin appeared to have commandeered the entire bands energy careering around stage like a 10 year old who’s had one too many Orange drinks, leaving brothers Lee & Tyler Sargent poker faced.
It does have to be said that the music was note perfect, and if you closed your eyes you could be listening to the album in all its majesty…and even better backed up by a enthusiastic crowd.
The problem was opening your eyes didn’t actually add that much to the experience.
Reading that back it sounds incredibly negative for a new band, but don’t get me wrong it was a very good gig (and i’ll be going again when they return to these shores). Clap Your Hands Say Yeahs’ debut album is available on import from Puregroove, or wait till January 23rd when its released in the UK courtesy of Wichita Recordings.
For an alternative view on Clap check out Playlouders scathing review of the ULU concert a few days after this. Dont agree with most of it, but very funny!
