Photo:
It’s the school holidays. And now we know where all the 13 year old’s are. They’re all in White Heat. In the day the club has them working in the fields, and at night they live a skins-like existence pottering around the place, spinning tunes and making music journalists feel old.
Two of these children are on the decks this evening, with very big hair and very small waists. But Late Of The Pier are ready for these whipper snappers. Their drummer is adorned with a burger chain’s paper crown, the synths boy is brandishing a hobby horse which he casts to the audience shortly after commencing and a 2 foot corrugated card castle surrounds the drum kit as the boys prepare their assault.
Despite such a young crowd, they don’t dance much. And given the swathe of gimmicks the band throw at the audience you’d think they’d be more excited. The hobby horse is dancing around the crowd. The lead vocalist pulls down a primitive ladder of planks from the ceiling and uses it in a surprisingly effective manner for percussion. Balloons are emptied onto the stage, and then, rather forlornly, smashed by the synth player (who has issues) with a hammer. A somewhat tragic waste of balloons.
Late of the Pier shouldn’t really need these gimmicks however, and some of them make them seem a little like publicity seekers. Every track starts with a quality bass line, some with great synthed rocky intros. Some tracks have fantastic multi-layering to their aggressive presentation. While sometimes the cracking bass doesn’t seem to evolve, there is much to route for here, and plenty of innovation.
Even Luke from The Kooks seems to enjoy it. In between the 13 year olds mobbing him.
