This show at The Lexington was to celebrate the release of Surrender To The Process the latest Ep by Secret Cameras who chose two great bands to join them on the bill.
We arrived just as Hello Cosmos went onto a stage bedecked with upright fluorescent light tubes in the style of David Bowie's Isolar tour, while the five piece were all wearing boiler suits, the four main members were in white and the harmonica player in orange.
The Manchester band opened with what I guess was Take A Ride with the harmonica player howling away, as they whipped up a storm of post punk guitars, blended with no wave saxophone. They then slimmed down to a four piece as they lit the Fuse a powerful tsunami of sound to guarantee they held our attention.
My guess at the next song was I Know This One it had piledriving drums with angular guitar blasting at the rhythms the sax and bass were weaving together. They introduced Rising Up as being the band's first single, a pulsating no waveish grunge rocker with a love of Gang Of Four. They then insisted that they would Run For President and let's face it they couldn't be worse than the current choices for that role.
They then brought the harmonica player back on for the immense closing number Let Love Be The Island On Which We Stand that forcefully made the case for a world full of love rather than hate, while trying to make a more peaceful world, as the harmonica raged against the sax squalls bringing this mightily impressive opening set to its conclusion. Hello Cosmos need to be seen live.
After the break it was up to The Heat Inc. to follow Hello Cosmos on a stage that was now stripped of the fluorescent lights, so suddenly looked quite stark, that suited the propulsive opener of Down In The City as Jon Dodd howled about The Heat as Marco Simoncelli's Gretsch White Falcon worked its magic on us.
Little Knuckle Charlie sped along like they had just hoovered up a couple of grams each, soon enough they wanted to Draw Blood For Proof of the kind you need a monster riff set against Maurizio Vitale's as ever super solid and expressive drumming. I think it was during Get Wild that one of the bands fans felt the need to take his top off and it felt totally right as Nicolas Rigots bassline drive things on at a cracking pace. Your After Love Song almost felt like we all needed a collective comedown ciggie as the energy coming from the stage was so intense.
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The intense and worrying memories as ever came to the fore on '98 that always leaves me wondering what went on in that garden back then. They then tore through Dream Baby Dream complete with a couple of false endings as they brought this incredibly good taut tight set to a premature conclusion leaving everybody in need of a few more songs from The Heat Inc.
After the break Secret Cameras had the unenviable task of trying to outdo both Hello Cosmos and The Heat Inc. as they launched the band's latest ep Surrender To The Process, they may have needed to wave a white flag, as try as they might this trio led by Yitamar Starets, who opened the set playing a synth and drum machine, rather than his guitar, as he sang about what happened In The Day, lacked the power and precision of both opening acts.
The important message of Celebrate Our Differences, from the new ep, was decent enough as the two guitars got going but lacked any bass, that could have been provided either by the synth or the drummers laptop box of tricks. It Doesn't Matter seemed to sum up what the audience members, who started to drift off, seemed to think of the set. When Yitamar chose to sing as forcefully as he could on Under Attack it worked well but with only one guitar and drums the band's sound was rather thin.
As they started to sing about Drowning the need for a more forceful backing became starker as no matter how much effort they put in, sending the message at the heart of Until You Realize they seemed to be losing the audience in ways that made Until This Ends seem more prophetic than it should have done, they did their best to destroy the instruments and turn over the synth, laying the guitars down to expire on Silence they had been outshone by the support bands.
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