Brixton Academy, 3rd December 2002.
Somehow, mainly through having to work just too much (godammit!), this was my first gig since this year’s Reading fest, and how I was looking forward to it. Expectations can be a bad thing as you most likely know too well - though fortunately this just wasn’t to be the case this time around.
The Alpine Stars played first, a dark, occasionally amost gothy sound, but more of a nu-goth kind of things, as there’s so much going on here musically, and a fair few of the songs performed have a very dancey edge. Old single 77 Sunset Strip is maybe a little repetitively lyrically, but certainly got the previously bored crowd going. It’s hard to get too excited about them, and I’d be amazed if they’re still around in a few years time, but they start the night off well enough.
After the usual all too dull thirty minutes of waiting around for the next band to arrive on stage, The Delgado’s enter our lives and effortlessly steal the night. And unlike 99.7% of support acts, really deserve to be headlining. This isn’t to take anything away from Doves, but goddamn The Delgado’s really are something truly spectacular, the kind of band who only come along once in a decade, and as with nearly all true great acts, probably wont receive the sales they deserve. So they’ll just have to make do with the acclaim. Consisting of eleven members, including guitarists, keyboardists, violinists, and a celloist, they play frantically and frenetically, whilst chucking in the odd slower number from time to time to give the audience a chance to breathe. Half of the songs played this evening come from The Great Eastern, and the rest from their latest album HATE, and if you haven’t bought both albums yet, well, just do so now. And then fall in love with their bitter sweet sound. Tonight they truly are something beautiful, and they sadly leave the stage all too soon.
Another tiresome half an hour passes, though this time it’s taken up with trying to get a drink before Doves play, and then the room hushes as a strange, semi-Lynchian (though sadly not even as close to being as good) short film begins. Which to be honest sets alarm bells ringing, as it’s a little weak, and it’s influences are all too obviously on display, though luckily nothing during the rest of the evening comes close to being as pretentious. For what we get with Doves live is just damn fine alternative stoned rock, not particularly groundbreaking perhaps, but certainly innovative enough that you’ll never find yourself playing guess the influence whilst catching them live. Upon the release of their first album, Lost Souls, I found Doves too dirgy, too downbeat, but The Last Broadcast more than surprised with its real sense of hope and the passion it’s filled with. After opening with Pounding and There Goes The Fear, their two biggest hits to date, and my favourite two songs of there’s, I was forced to question whether or not they had shot their load too soon, that anything could compare. But I needn’t of doubted them...Well, not too much anyway.
For occasionally they do suffer from ‘too many of the songs sound the same’ syndrome, and as a live act they could be, well, a little more lively (mentioning the name of the song from time to time would’ve helped too, as I’m sure not everyone in the venue has both albums), but the passion and joy they bring to each tune more than makes them worth seeing. Words and The Last Broadcast were the weaker moments, but ending on an old track from their Sub Sub days sees the audience forget that they’d been dancing, or at least indie shuffling, for the best part of three hours and realise that they have no choice but the jump up and down like escaped mental patients. Which is just how all gigs should end.
Alex Finch.
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