Brighton's best...
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The Go! Team...
review With their matching polka-dot frocks, synchronised dance moves and sugar-sweet harmonies, The Pipettes are a doo-wop Le Tigre - minus the simmering crossness. Backing boys The Cassettes (which includes members of Electric Soft Parade and The Tenderfoot, FYI) compliment the vintage vision in college cardies and a diffident manner akin to the diner band in Happy Days.What makes The Pipettes far more than just 60s girl band revivalists are their lyrics which tell of boys with dirty minds, one-night stands and cravings for boys (and girls) in school uniform - all accompanied by the sweetest smiles and perkiest hand-jives. But then even The Shangri-las got a bit steamy sometimes. It’s their first time playing the Concorde and it’s rather busy. "Thankyou VERY much! We're having SO much fun!" says blonde Pipette RiotBecki with charming sincerity as the crowd clap their hands sore. A most appropriate apperitif to The Go! Team. Thankyou VERY much! I don't do audience participation. The mere thought fills me with a clammy ennui. So why am I clapping along tonight, waving my hands in the air and chanting "G-G-G-GO! TEAM!" with such vigour? I blame Ninja, The Go! Team's bouncing fireball of a frontwoman. She’s absent when they open with wall of sound instrumental 'Junior Kickstart', three guitars and two drumkits blazing. With my head in the speaker takings pics I get a niggling sense that I'll look back in years to come and sign animatedly "Yes, I can pinpoint that was the moment I lost my hearing. Still, it was a fine gig..." As the last bars of the song die away Ninja leaps on, all pedal pushers and blissful grin, and for the next hour commands the room to dance, chant, and create a giant rumble by all stamping our feet at the same time (while Concorde techies no doubt nervously eye the lighting rig). If your friends aren’t dancing Ninja wants to know about it, and she wants to copy your moves too if you don't mind. It would all be a bit Pontins if they weren’t so bloody great. For her part Ninja dances like she’s perpetually won a Bugsy Malone custard-gun fight, but censors herself when she realises she's run-dancing on the spot, like those Pink Windmill Show brats after they’d slam-dunked Grotbags into a particularly rancid vat of mushy peas and kiddy-sick. It’s a Red It is kind of hard to stand still faced with The Go! Team's wonky, triumphant melodies and hopskotch rhymes though. It’s a Red Hand Gang vibe, the soundtrack to a kid's adventure where fun, mystery and racing round on Choppers are the order of the day and NO grown ups are allowed. Every toddler I play The Go! Team to (and there have been a few) jiggles around crazily, wise to the potent euphoria that comes from combining playground hip-hop with harmonicas, synthesised brass and cheerleading chants. Mcdonalds however misunderstood this Polyphonic Spree joy-vibe, and were left smarting by Go! Team’s refusal to have their tunes promote the consumption of pretty-looking offal. ‘Bottle Rocket’’s a treat tonight, as is ‘Huddle Formation’ - though it could have done with the sound cranking up a notch or two - and last song 'Ladyflash' is a real corker. Maybe they should have left it there, because the encore's a new, untitled song, and faced with the unknown the audience mood calms a tad - but only just, it's still prime Go! Team. Ooh yes, The Power Is most definitely On.
about Concorde 2
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...leave a yum! on a photo of someone you've taken a shine to to let them know you care! How to Yum!
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Sea Spray
