Great Escape 2009: Fight Like Apes, Komedia

After two days of stormy weather the sun finally has its hat on by the seaside on Saturday and the masses of day ticket holders decide to join the chivalry too. This leaves many a disgruntled wristband bearer pacing the streets of Brighton as they all try and fail to squeeze into the same few venues.

Not long after Babyshambles play their not so ‘secret’ gig, Audio opens for the evening with Harrow boys the Rogues kicking things off. The blistering pace at which these young contenders flit from keyboard lead gypsy-rock to edgy math guitars, keyboard lead grooves and electronics ends up sounding like a punked up soundtrack to Sonic The Hedgehog. For those of you not so sure, that is definitely a good thing. There is something about them that is both beautifully offensive, no one needs another really nice band, and equally alluring. The vocals are hard to pick and often just carry the melody in swooping falsetto. You’re not supposed to sing along to this, you are supposed to dance. The brilliant ‘Carnival’ could well be attacking your ears and controlling your feet for the rest of the summer.

Fight Like Apes have a tough act to follow and rolling onto the stage like a group of off cuts from Robert Smith’s hair they don’t look particularly in the mood. By the time they have cruised through ‘Jake Summers’, which has MayKay sounding like the evil spawn of Regina Spektor and Avril Lavigne, they are comfortably into their screamy stride. There is absolutely nothing endearing about Fight Like Apes and their Americanisms but live they are a different monster. There is no denying their energy or the quality of the tunes they already have in their armoury. Songs such as ‘Something Global’ which is loud, raucous angry fun with a catchy chorus for added oomph could well take them a long way.

The night continues over at the tiny Komedia Studio bar with Finnish duo TV Off and their freaky electro pop. It never hurts having a front woman who is attractive, energetic, intriguing and can sing a bit, even if she does insist on drawing a strange line of ink horizontally across the centre of her face, and two parts Bjork one part Karen O vocalist Sara is all of the above. Whilst she bounces around capturing the eye of everyone in the audience her colleague Markku plays with his laptop in the background. When I say “plays with” I mean “conjures up delightful melodies of digestible electro-pop in its most pure and simple form’. ‘Car is On Fire’ and its upbeat anger gains a whole new lease of life live and the entire set is fueled by an energy and angst that isn’t part of the package on the bands record. Definitely one of the finds of the weekend.

The weekend finishes with Matt Abbott aka Skint and Demoralised and his bizarre mixture of songs and beat poetry, which he performs armed with only his iPod and a speaker that looks like it might have been carried around by Jam Master Jay in the late 80s. His accent, hair and dress pretty much live up to every stereotype you could find and his poetry, whilst informative, witty and humorous, is merely a list of clever observations and crass rhymes. Surely more is needed for poetry to impress than clever observations when we already have Mssrs Turner and Skinner who have made it an artform and put it to music? Opening with a poem about Blackpool and then skipping onto a similar one with half rhymes about Scarborough is an interesting choice to say the least. More importantly the music takes a journey from Wakefield down the M62 to tones reminiscent of Wigan Casino, and if you pretend there is more than glorified karaoke on the stage you will realise that the songs on offer are pretty good. There is a slight resemblance to Reverend and the Makers, but the pastiche arrogance is missing. There is a charm, an honesty and maybe even a brilliance to every song and your entertainer does his best to do just that, often leading the audience into fits of giggles. You can’t help thinking that, whilst it is not always the case, Matt Abbott needs a band to get his retro-indie-soul appreciated otherwise he will end up as just another guy with some radio friendly tunes.