The last time your reviewer caught STANLEY SUPER 800 they had the unenviable task of opening for an on-form I Am Kloot at a ram-packed version of this same venue. Crammed precariously at the front of a crowded stage, they battled against the usual support band's lot of iffy acoustics, crowd apathy and guitar strings giving up the ghost mid-song. Against the odds, they emerged triumphant and came away leaving you with the feeling there was future greatness lurking within the folds of their wigged-out pop.
Fast forward a couple of months and that same feeling of something important developing beneath our very noses again permeates. Sure, the odds are in Stanley's favour this time with copies of their eponymous debut sitting proudly on the merch stand and the band taking the stage to a largely partisan audience, but it's still a wet, miserable Thursday night, so all credit to this cool, slightly kooky quartet for pulling out the stops regardless.
The celebratory atmosphere and the band's natural flamboyance are both embraced from the off: it's embodied by keyboard wizard Tosh's dazzling orange shirt and ridiculous top hat and the band's opening salvo - a searing instrumental that sounds like a summit meeting between Sonic Youth and the Super Furries. Great.
The band are quick to seize upon its' success with the catchily skewhiff, organ-led pop of "For Today", with Stan's laconic, drawled vocals starring and the band getting right behind the groove. They're meatier and more hard-edged than on record, but tracks like "Moonlight" and the undeniably excellent "Mountain Climbing" still flirt with Stanley's dancier tendencies, exaggerated by some killer strobe action on the latter.
Musically, Stanley keep the invention coming. Stan and bassist Flor chop and change guitars nearly all the time, but this doesn't threaten to disrupt the flow. Unfortunately, their collaboration with support act and freewheeling verbalist Jinx Lennon does. Earlier on, Jinx had 'entertained' us with a woefully overlong set which would have to be rated as one of the worst supports your reviewer's had to suffer in 20 years of gigs and to bring him back for the peurile "Revenge Of The Vinegar Man" really is a bridge too far.
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Thankfully, their collaboration with Cork songstress Annette Buckley on "It's All Over Now" is a much classier affair, and tonight the desolate piano setting of its' recorded counterpart gives way to something far raunchier but no less captivating. It's part of a home strait that also includes the brilliantly strident "Rolled Up In Gold" and something that reminded this writer strongly of the Velvets' "Rock'n'Roll", though that's probably the booze talking.
Whatever, Stanley Super 800 are a fine, slightly off-kilter outfit, with a nice line in both the idiosyncracy and catchy pop moves your reviewer thrives on. Tonight was very much their night, but the euphoria is infectious and will surely propel them much further. As Stan so sagely puts it in the gloriously daft "Mountain Climbing", "So for every glass that I'm spilling, I've got another one filling." Reckon so. This is the sound of a band who's cup's overflowing with good ideas.
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