LIVE REVIEW: The Go! Team, Southampton University Students' Union (Date: 24.02.08)

How the fuck do they do it? How does Ninja stay so ecstatic, so enthusiastic, so hyperactive through entire gigs? Then there’s the high-legged, arm-flailing dances. Tonight the hysteria isn’t born in the crowd; it streams from the stage and infects the hip congregation as they feed on the energy. The Go! Team never seem to tire and, on top of this, each member of the Brighton crew possesses an enamel-rotting sweet smile that’s going to either make you sick or envious. The fun starts now.

Tonight Ninja’s squeezed into a tiny green top and the most fashionable black bin liner skirt but she doesn’t stay still long enough for you to appreciate it. Before long she’s running on the spot, windmilling and bellowing at the peak of every leap. Beyond Sam, Jamie and head-honcho Ian, the wandering guitarists who dodge and weaver around the little rapping dynamo, the pace of the evening is blisteringly hammered out.

The two drum kits hypnotize but as you watch and listen you’ve got to ask whether or not they add anything musically. Thankfully Chi steps out from her skins to sing the most adorable ditty as an interlude while Ninja disappears for a costume change. Either side of this uncharacteristically subtle intermission the band rage between tracks that stretch between Super Furry Animals homage to a driving soundtrack arranged to throw hulking Cadillacs into cardboard boxes for no particular reason.

‘Grip Like A Vice’ may be a skip-rope anthem suited and booted in leg warmers and faded retro vests, but ‘The Power Is On’ is the coolest playground power track with hints of action figure fights and sandbox skirmishes. The tempo is so rampant you’d think they’d need a sit down but a sip of water and they’re back on it. ‘Huddle Formation’, ‘Bottle Rocket’ and ‘Ladyflash’ are already Go! Team classics, vintage with their Grandmaster Flash-era beats.

Last year’s Proof Of Youth album has consolidated the band’s mainstream status. Tonight’s hearty versions of ‘Titanic Vandalism’, ‘The Wrath of Marcie’ and ‘Doing It Right’ sound like themes from programmes that give kids mini-scramblers to race up and down slagheaps. Amazing! This is their beauty: the electroclash of retro on retro, white pop and black rap, producing a universal party sound. The fusion’s so perfect tonight that I’m not sure if I want to go home and play with Transformers or continue my dissertation. What year is it again?

Words: Dean Samways

Photo: Dean Samways

LIVE REVIEW: We Are Scientists, Southampton University Student's Union (Date: 18.11.07)

Great gigs that stay with you fall into two categories: epic or fun. Arcade Fire, Editors and Muse are epic spectacles that shake you to your very core and leave your bones resonating for an age. Bloc Party, Dirty Pretty Things and Dizzee Rascal are fun. Fun should not be confused with throwaway. These loosen the jaw and relax the bladder. They stun. They throw bodies into spins and send arms-a-flailing. We Are Scientists are of the latter category.

Bouncing on stage with a new drummer and guitarist, who are never really introduced, Keith and Chris promise to “fuck you up!”; by this they bring a little bit of entertainment and learning, and like an episode of Sesame Street where Big Bird is cavity checked by that doughy-eyed mammoth, they deliver. They hit the crowd hard with a lightning rendition of ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt’ then flow straight into ‘This Scene Is Dead’, which is slower than its recorded counterpart but is as pounding as an assault of kettle drums. Now comes the banter: WaS seem to have an uncanny ability to be as funny as hell, but only if you’re in on the gag. This doesn’t detract from the understood japes being little nuggets of comedy genius.

After ‘Inaction’ an uneasy stride is taken into unknown territory. The first of the new songs is played for the crowd to get their ears around. Perhaps called ‘Patience’, it echoes Coldplay and is the first indication that maybe this ‘difficult’ second album will be more destined for the coffee table than the dance floor.

Another new one has a new romantic tone. Keys are given more prominence in the new repertoire as the tempo dawdles to an ambient, Rapture-like slow jam. It’s now that you ask yourself, “What’s happened?”

Just as it seems all is lost and the Scientists seem destined to be locked up in the lab to find that secret ingredient of dance indie again, they leisurely thrash out ‘It’s A Hit’, ‘Lousy Reputation’ and ‘The Great Escape’ before coming back on to attack a somewhat disheartened crowd with another new one. This time it’s ‘70s punk, aggressive and just what was needed. Hope is restored and then cemented with ‘Cash Cow’.

“We had to finish on this… because it’s so fucking dance-able!”

Words: Dean Samways

Photo: Peter Hill

LIVE REVIEW: Dizzee Rascal, Southampton University Student's Union (Date: 08.11.07)

In the first year of university there was a big debate, never really settled and costing us a night out: “Is rap music ‘real’ music?” Two friends well versed in the strategies of argument, who, unfortunately for the opposer, were also fans of black music, took the discussion into the early hours. Needless to say my über-indie, whiter-than-white friend was shouted down and mocked until he buckled and compromised, “I only give rap music the time of day if it offers me something more than Fiddy and his gangster musings”.

I’ll hold my hands up: I’m a bigger fan of guitar music than I am UK hip-hop. In fact the last rap album I bought was probably The Sugarhill Gang best of, some five years ago. With Dizzee Rascal though you don’t just get a London MC with a powerful, bass soundtrack; you get a twice-nominated and one-time winner of the Mercury Prize who smashes down genres and musical barriers with a playful grin on his face. Needless to say this is my first gig seeing three guys on a stage with no strings or skins in sight.

Tonight is an assault. The three men on stage, two MCs and one DJ, set the pace for the ecstatic crowd with lightening lyrics splashed on top of tunes that rubbish everything that’s gone before them. The raw, vest-wearing enthusiasm that cannons through the entire set forces Dizzee and friend to take two interludes. The first comes after the Arctic Monkeys collaboration, ‘Temptation’, at which point homage is paid to the Sheffield scenesters with a snip of ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ played over the PA followed by some Nirvana and Kaiser Chiefs. The second pause has a jungle theme, with classic cuts played from Dizzee’s days as a D’n’B DJ. All this gives the gig a different feel.

The show leaves me dumbfounded.‘Old Skool’, ‘Sirens’ and ‘Flex’ demonstrate amazing enjoyment in what the Londoner does, and the crowd revel in it. ‘Stop Dat’, ‘Fix Up, Look Sharp’ ‘Jus’ A Rascal’ blow everyone away as hands are raised and jumping breaks out. If there was ever a gig that changed a mind about a genre of music, it was this one. and

Words: Dean Samways

Photo: Fabric London Press Website