Captain / Gisli / Lucky Jim

The Newcastle leg of Captain’s university tour sees them play in the intimate surroundings of the Global Café in Newcastle Union. Clearly not a band for glamour, this represents a great opportunity for the sparse crowd to get close to such a hotly tipped band. Unfortunately this also means that this band is seen with the aid of relatively sub-standard equipment in a room with very poor acoustics. I was a little concerned that a band of this calibre were playing where I had, only hours before, been eating a bacon roll, but that probably says more for their dedication to the musical cause than it does about me eating in inappropriate locations.

First up was Lucky Jim. I once read a book by the same name and written by Kingsley Amis. It was about a university lecturer who falls in love with his colleague’s friend’s girlfriend and is then fired from his post. I mention this only because that is what I was thinking about during the performance. It’s not that his folk rock style was particularly boring, just that it was nothing special. Pleasant. The kind of music that induces smoke filled reveries around a camp fire amongst sing-alongs and roasting marshmallows. Apologies, I think I got a bit carried away there.

This was soon followed by Norwegian band Gisli who represented a marked difference from many of the Scandinavian acts that have flooded the UK market recently. In saying this, that certainly does not imply that they have adopted an original sound. There were clear influences from bands such as Weezer, All-American Rejects and Eels which culminated in a summery, feel-good repertoire, but one which I can’t help feeling is plagiarised from half the pop-rock industry.

But then again I suppose if you come to see this sort of gig you aren’t particularly looking for innovation. You’re probably just after an inoffensive evening of pleasant music that is easy and painless to listen to. And if that is your aim, this is a great gig.

Pleasant seems to sum up the evening as a whole. It’s not the worst evening of music that you will encounter, but it’s certainly not the best. In a time when originality lies in the constant pursuit of a more and more abstract alternativism, it’s bands like Captain that stand as reminders of the safety and successes of the Brit-pop sound that is being left behind. If Captain were a person, they would be that nice quiet bloke who people found likeable but who had very little to say for himself and ultimately was considered a little dull.

They begin with hit single ‘Glorious’ which perfectly illustrates their synthesised indie style with its affable, keyboard-driven melody and male-female harmonies. Not the most enterprising concept, but it’s one that they have utilised to their advantage. I guess I’m supposed to attack these kinds of bands for being samey and carbon copied from each other, but they are just too pleasant to form a negative opinion of. Just a fairly neutral one. It’s a bit like calling that dull bloke a boring git. It’d make him cry and then you would feel guilty.

‘Glorious’ was immediately followed up by another of their singles ‘Broke’, which was met with muted applause from the small audience. It seems to figure that a band’s style is reflected in their following. I don’t know if it is a prerequisite for liking their music, but many of the crowd members were the pleasant, inoffensive personifications of this placid-rock, and not at all boisterous in their greeting of each song. Rather like an owner resembling their dog, Captain’s fans resemble their mellow, reserved style to an almost uncanny degree. But, as I have said earlier, you can’t dislike them for it.

They soon reached some new material which was perhaps unwisely grouped together in the middle of the set. Songs like ‘Safe Harbour’ stand for exactly that. Something safe. It stays with the same formula that they know and love but perhaps also show a distinct hollowness in sound. Where you expect depth there is a distinct lack of an intensity that you come to suppose with this type of music, and so where they could achieve profundity, they accomplish only a sense of anticlimax. This is, in part, due to the acoustics of the venue but also the result of a sound that hasn’t transferred as well as it potentially could from record to live performance.

But then again I come back to that which has been bugging me all along. That indifference which renders their music so utterly faultless but at the same time so utterly undeserving of high accolades.

In saying this, their final song ‘Accide’ was a very positive end to the gig, containing the variation and depth in sound that was perhaps lacking before and for once there was a fitting climax to the promise as the instruments were expertly layered on top of one another to very impressive effect.

So all in all I guess I haven’t really said much about Captain at all, apart from the fact that I don’t really have an opinion of their performance. I stood through 45 minutes in which I felt fairly indifferent, but not altogether disappointed. As a result I feel it is appropriate to finish on that one word which does in fact sum it all up. Pleasant.

FUTURE GIGS

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