Saturday, June 25, 2005

WE'RE A COVERS BAND

So when, as tonight, New Order play Joy Division songs, are they doing their own material, or are they doing a cover? Judging by how Barney's whoops of "c'mon" polish out any bleakness left in Love Will Tear Us Apart after the forcing of Blue Monday beats into its belly, they clearly approach it like it's their song to do as they will with; but really, it sounds like it needs to be taken into care pretty swiftly.

Ana Matronic pops up to guest with ver Order, which really just underlines how - after their triumphant performance last year - Scissor Sisters haven't appeared to do very much besides surprise guest appearances and awards shows. It's possible they've been busy beyond our peripheral vision - someone, for example, must have invented the sodoku - but they're not that easy to misplace, surely?

"Thanks for waiting around in all this [inaudible] weather, just to see Coldplay" says Chris Martin, apparently not joking, either. The bits we see through our fingers are exactly as you'd expect them to be. Whenever Martin pulls that face as if he's really, really feeling something, we want to, in the words of our mam, really give him something to feel about.

Razorlight look as if they're about to embark on the biggest mis-step of the festival - a giant countdown to their appearance on the Other Stage, like they're the coming of the new year, or the final round in Name That Tune. Then when they hit the stage, not only is Johnny Borrell wearing a shirt - not like him - but he's also got a scarf on. It's exactly like your cool mate has gone for his first term at Cambridge and come back a bit of a toff-aspirant knobbage. More worryingly, Borrell now looks like Rod Liddle's twin brother.

And the start of their set is a little wobbly, too; just as we're tugging the lid of our pen to note down 'over-promoted' when we notice they're getting better and better with each minute of each song. Yes... it's a triumphant fightback. Three songs in, and they're actually rather marvellous. The use of the spotlight even makes sense of Borrell's decision to wear a white outfit - a wardrobe choice which looked like a Icke-a-like bid to suggest heavenly credentials for Geldof and like a bloke who'd be coming round to take drinks orders after quoits when picked by Kasabian turned into a simple but effective piece of showmanship for Borrell.

BBC THREE then elected to leave Razorlight to go and see Coldplay doing Clocks. We liked the way when Chris Martin jerked his way to the final note huge searchlights came on lighting up the sky - partly because the visual effect was brilliant, but mostly because it meant Martin was going to stop flailing like a bear with his paw in a beehive.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't why I still find it charming that Barney hasn't bothered to learn the words to his songs over the past twenty years, but I do...

....having said that, New Order weren't spectacular tonight; either Barney's microphone was shot or he decided to leave out every other word, and the "COME ON!" gets a little wearing after a while.

But Lauren has just said something about Japanese ska, and there's German go-go dancers on stage, so I don't mind too much right now…

Ian

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