It's all gone very indie...
The Long Blondes, Manchester Academy 2, 18th Feb
Age is on Kate Jackson’s mind tonight. She stops the show before ‘Once And Never Again’ to refute newspaper rumours that she’s - shock horror - thirty years old. “I’m only 27!”, she insists, to a crowd that probably wouldn‘t care if she was 50, never mind 30, “It’s terrible!”
Doth the lady protest too much? Whatever the truth, it’s clear that she wants to get on with the whole being-a-pop-superstar thing well before it’s too late.
It’s about time then, that roughly a year after the hype around them died down, The Long Blondes should finally learn to play their instruments properly and put on a good show. Gone is the largely-tuneless cacophony of their earlier shows, replaced by a sleek, streamlined but nonetheless riotous noise helmed by Jackson’s immense stage presence and seductive tones. Her singing tonight is impeccable, another early worry for the band put firmly to bed. Couple this with the fact that she knows a thing or two about getting the crowd on side and you’ve got a megastar in the making.
The band take to the stage with a menacing version of Lust In The Movies, driven along by Screech Louder’s simple but effective drumming technique: a bit like Meg White on REALLY strong steroids. They proceed to rattle through all of their debut’s highlights, each time to a rapturous response from an audience flirted into a frenzy by Jackson’s sly winks and sashays.
If there is a downside, it’s that any of the solid gold choruses aired tonight could realistically fit into any number of the songs - The Blondes aren’t currently in possession of the type of standout anthems that bands such as Franz Ferdinand or The Kaiser Chiefs can drop at will.
Kate should relax though; if they can prepare a few of those said anthems in time for album number two, and continue to put on shows like this, then there’s absolutely no reason why she won’t be queen of the indie castle long before she enters her fourth decade on earth.
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