Fang Island, Madame JoJo’s, London

I have, as I assume most people do, a select group of gig buddies. A comforting bundle of friends that help traverse the baffling array of shows that new bands are playing, that old bands are playing, the things we simply have to see. The system works. Between us we don’t miss much we don’t want to miss. And we always know that at least one of us will be up for going along. You don’t know my gig buddy Rich, but this is my fourth DIY live review so it’s definitely time to introduce him because these are the people who I stumble out of grotty venues with, the people who I share the intoxicating immediacy of post-gig super-enthused hyperbole with. And that’s the preposterous nonsense that’ll weasel into my noggin and then leak out my fingers into each and every review. I went to my first gig with Rich (Slough Music Festival, 1991, a day now filled with sun bleached nostalgia and a killer line-up. The crowd booed the Mock Turtles off for being Northern. And shit. I knew straight off that this was something I’d be doing again and again. Erm, gigs that is, not booing the Mock Turtles), and we’ve racked up hundreds since, and there’s enough implicit faith in our judgements to know which gigs to invite each other to. I’m not getting Rich a ticket to Lucky Soul, and he doesn’t bother suggesting Yo La Tengo to me anymore.

Rich invited me to Fang Island. So I said yes. He bought tickets. And only then did I bother asking what they were like. ‘They rock really, really hard, but they’re really, really cheery, they describe themselves as everyone high-fiving everyone and one of them wears a big hood like a wizard’. And, gotta hand it to him, that could (and probably should) be the review (though I’d probably leave the odd wizard bit out). Those few words absorb almost every essence of the band, get right to the meat of their live experience.

Except, except there’s more to say. Need to mention the goofy charm of these boys crammed onto the tiny stage, need to mention how the dude can’t see out his hood thing and can’t get near his mic because of it. Have to say how spine-tingling this fizzing combination of Arcade Fire vastness and Hold Steady spirit is. Want to mention the rabid enthusiasm radiating out of them and being mirrored and refracted right back by us grinning fools. Should say how this rock, which is somehow heads-up-possessed-eyes-to-the-ceiling and heads-down-1234rock at the same time is so smartly dumb and joyous and celebratory and in love with noise and how its punctuated by thrashing, mental keyboard shark attacks that drag a bruised, corroded metallic sheen to the already battered party. And ‘The Illinois’, jeez, it’s huge; they absolutely roar it at us, then pummel it into our guts, drop off into a false ending (did I accidentally clap? Maybe), say something cute about the how the sun don’t sit in the sky, and start roaring again.

On the way out I ask Rich what he thought, ‘I fucking loved it, it was awesome, they just rock so hard’. And that, that should be the review.