Photo: WENN
Picture this: It’s festival season, you’re dripping with alcohol sweat, high on life, dancing to frantic sounds of electro madness, you smell like death and sick rolled into one and all night you promise yourself you’ll remember the name of that incredible band you’ve randomly stumbled upon. Sound familiar?
And then you wake up the next morning and can’t for the life of you remember who it was. Yep, it’s happened to us all. But don’t worry festivalgoers because that band was most likely The Correspondents.
“It’s only gone and taken us six fucking years to release an album, but now it’s finally out,” lead signer Mr Bruce cries jubilantly. It has indeed been a long time coming for the London-based swing duo, but ‘Puppet Loosely Strung’ will be a test as to whether The Correspondents can continue on as more than just a festival gimmick.
DJ Chucks lays down the first beat to ‘Washington Square,’ as Bruce towers over the crowd with his pointy face, velvet cloak and dark rimmed spectacles portraying comparisons to the Demon Headmaster, or something equally as sinister. ‘Fear & Delight’ sees Bruce whirl around the stage with his gangly limbs jolting out in all directions, knocking over his microphone on many occasions and kicking parts of the stage set. His ability to scat to the beat is impressive and with his animated facial expressions over-pronouncing every. single. word.
‘What’s Happened to Soho?’ and ‘Well Measured Vice’ do well to get the crowd swinging, with Bruce clearly pulsating off the energy. Charismatic, robust and fuelled full of outlandish outfit changes, you have to give The Correspondents credit for putting on one hell of a performance.
But (and there is a but) after a while the thumping and non-stop energy beings to languish in ingenuity, with songs like ‘Give You Better’ becoming nothing more than a drone of showy noise. It’s a given that The Correspondents are all about the spectacle, but the dancing and buoyant tempo becomes repetitive, a little garish at times and the gimmicks begin to dwindle in originality.
The setup is eccentric for a Wednesday night, but maybe a little too much for some, as the shouts and lyrical quarrels from Bruce draw tiresome and repetitive towards the end of the set.
Although it is heart-wrenchingly endearing to see dedicated fans trying hard to force down drinks, forgetting about the looming Thursday morning wakeup call and clinging onto the nostalgia of better festival times. A must see festival band yes, but not quite convincing enough to demand mainstream success.
