Brighton's best...
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The Rezillos...
review Revival bands. There are two problems with them.First up – are they still any good? 99% of the time the answer is no. Whatever spark that bands like The Damned or Stiff Little Fingers had has long since dissipated and to see them go through the motions nowadays puts one in mind of those 60’s bands performing at Butlins. But there is still the 1%, bands like The Buzzcocks and Echo & The Bunnymen. Still good partly because they still sound fresh, even with so many of today’s bands copying them – but mostly because they made bloody good songs which still sound great today. Secondly, there is the unavoidable question of age. Whilst we are quite prepared, indeed expect, to see gnarly old men sing Jazz or the Blues, somehow middle aged people doing Rock & Roll is just wrong. Quite why this should be I don’t know. Nick Hornby brings it up in Hi Fidelity: seeing 40-somethings at gigs today is not unusual, so why should seeing people of the same age onstage at gigs seem strange? "The Rezillos were always unique during
the days of Ye Olde Punke Rocke." Are skinny twenty-somethings better at making music than older people? Do you lose the urge to Rock once you pass thirty? Surely not, but the fact remains that seeing New Order, Mick Jagger, etc., strutting about on-stage really doesn’t look right. How then, would The Rezillos fare? As you may have gathered, usually I avoid revival bands in the same way that George Galloway avoids answering questions. But The Rezillos were always unique during the days of Ye Olde Punke Rocke. Sci-Fi schlock horror lyrics about UFOs and monsters, the occasional 100 MPH take on 60’s standards like Glad All Over and vocalists Faye and Eugene’s camp tin foil costumes were unmatched anywhere else – only the B-52s or the Cramps came close. (Guitarist Jo Callis was also in The Human League, pop fact fans!) "it was unfortunately rather
like watching your parents dance at a wedding." I, therefore, broke my revival bands rule and dragged myself down to the Concorde 2 at the unusual hour of 7.30pm (was it an early show so that we could all arrange our babysitters?) where I caught the latter half of support act Captain Everything! – who, despite their promising name, turned out to be a(nother) bunch of Green Day copyists – think Sum 41, Blink 182, Good Charlotte, New Found Glory and so many more. I entertained myself by mingling through the crowd and seeing who I could remember from 25 years ago, pitying them their haggard appearance, unlike I who remains youthful and vigorous (I’m being humorous here by the way!). Then, down went the houselights and on came the intro tape of 50’s horror and sci-fi film snippets as The Rezillos launched into a succession of poptastic tunes from back in the day – Bad Guy Reaction, Cold Wars, Flying Saucer Attack – which were enough to turn the crowd into a pogoing mass. As the dry ice dispersed though, it revealed, as I had feared, the incongruous sight of the now portly Faye and Eugene kitsching it up on stage with their band, it was unfortunately rather like watching your parents dance at a wedding. "An encore of crowd favourite
Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight sent us home happy." Never mind though, the proportion of good songs to middle aged spread, plus the retention of that 'spark', meant that The Rezillos set was a good one, aside from one or two obligatory new songs that really nobody wanted to hear. Genuine Top 20 hits like Destination Venus and Top of the Pops followed before an encore of crowd favourite Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonight (amazingly originally a Fleetwood Mac b-side) sent us home happy. Only the sight of The Rezillos on a 25 year old picture poster on sale at the stall on the way out reminded me that I’d just seen a bunch of old timers playing.
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