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It’s never an ideal situation, opening to a room packed with people there to see someone else, that someone being the South Pole to your North sound-wise. Why The Ghost Frequency supported campy-cabaret troubadour Duke Special on this T on the Fringe bill may always remain a mystery. Even more of a mystery is how these folks, there to see what essentially boils down to quirky easy listening (Mr. Special comes complete with a clarinettist – and not in a good way), couldn’t give it up just a little for the opening band blowing up the stage. Well, except for that one drunk girl in this and every unresponsive crowd who is contractually obligated to shift in a comely fashion to anything, from either pole.
So The Ghost Frequency wisely chose to ignore the crowd, and throughout the short set neither crowd nor band seemed to mind the other. The singer sang to the drum kit most of the time, which was probably a much more interesting focal point than the dreary faces waiting for Dresden Dolls Lite, not knowing how to compute discordant synthetic noise. But for those able to compute, immediately you notice its actually extraordinarily good noise and you should loosen the hell up. The Ghost Frequency are a band that take what you know and possibly expect, but twist it around and free it of any Scenester Clone Syndrome. Like an unselfconscious Rapture, they one-up the cowbell by whipping out some maracas by two songs in. And speaking of unaffectedness, the idea of hanging from the rafters only tempted the singer twice – he gave the impression that he was too engrossed in the music to bother. They’re modest hard-workers on stage, these lads.
The single ‘Nightmare’ was a highlight because, well, it’s their best song and should be played on the radio often. Smart too, these boys. Watching the music crash through this five man (two synth!) explosion, in which each member seemed to have the music circulating like blood through their bodies, they seemed to be the only ones in the room smart enough to notice something incredible was happening on stage. It was evident during the vocoder-splashed killer closer ‘For The Wolves’, with the lights flashing and singer writhing on the ground, that this band should not be the opener for this show, or any other really. They’re more than ready to pack in their own huge crowd. And hopefully no clarinettists will be involved.
