It's not often you see girls sporting ball gowns and angels wings rubbling shoulders with geezers dressed as Count Dracula or in dressing gowns (!) at gigs - apart from Sisters Of Mercy conventions, obviously - but then it is Halloween, so I guess tonight it's a case of expect the unexpected.
This is certainly the thinking with support band, Dublin quintet MELATON. I mean, how often - aside from The Pogues - do you see a rock frontman playing what looks like a bouzouki? Percussively, too: the way he plays owes more to Johnny Ramone than Terry Woods.
Actually, Melaton are a quiet revelation. They've got a free 4-track EP available from their website (www.melatonmusic.com ) and showcase tracks like "Flow" and "Still Water" from it tonight. Theirs is a rhythmic, but not obvious indie rock variation, with plenty of invention from the rhythm section (they don't knuckle down to standard 4/4 stuff too often) and with their singer only once falling foul of Chris Martin-isms (at the end of "Still Water"), they definitely sound worthy of further investigation.
The party-anticipating crowd are unusually generous, but the throng has swelled singificantly by the time JJ72 hit the stage at the unearthly early hour of 9PM and crash into the forbidding chords of "City."
Undoubtedly, the live J72 creature is a considerably more muscular animal than its' recorded counterpart. The glowing pumpkin head stares out from the top of Hillary Woods' bass cab as they confidently dispatch an incisive "October Swimmer" early on and get to grips with the more melodic end of the new album via "Half Three."
One of the barbs aimed with regularity at JJ72 is that Hillary Woods and drummer Fergal Matthews are merely apparatchiks to Mark Greaney's Stalin, but their input is significant when you dismantle this big, portentous sound. Augmented by a fourth member on significant guitar and shadowy keyboards, the rhythm section smoulder nicely; Hillary losing herself in her pulsing basslines and Matthews slamming away with the accuracy and single-mindedness of an Olympic athlete.
|
As for Greaney himself, well he simply gets on with the job and doesn't indulge in any prima donna biz at all. Clad in sober black leather jacket, he tips his head back at the mic and slashes at his battered Stratocaster in true Kurt fashion. He's not easily riled, either. At one point someone scores a direct hit on his mic stand with a T-shirt and Greaney carries on regardless; tossing it away without missing a beat.
JJ72 have sometimes seemed too weedy to carry this off successfully in the past, but tonight songs like the tom-heavy "Algeria", the lengthy "Sinking" and "Formulae" sport rippling biceps and rock convincingly. Even "Serpent Sky" - overblown and preposterous on record - tonight revels in its' divebombing riff majesty.
Greaney addresses his detractors with a cry of "I sound like a chipmunk? Well, I wanna be a chipmunk!" before a massed shoutalong through "Snow" and they sign off with the inevitable "re-animated" (Hillary's description) "Oxygen."
They return - beneath an attractive flower backdrop - for a calm-after-the-storm "Oiche Mhaithe (I To Sky)" and a surprise, but effective cover of Chris Isaak's lingeringly good "Wicked Game", before spoiling the effect with ten minutes of crashing crescendo to sign off in true rawk style. Guys, considering you're still on the defensive about Nirvana comparisons at times, is trying to recreate Reading '92 really gonna help?
Nonetheless, this was a relatively minor blemish after a set good enough to convince that JJ72 look likely to be in this for the long run, even if they still flaunt the odd imperfection.
When they finally exit, it's still well before the midnight hour, but most of this crowd are already happily bewitched.
|
