Next up are an indie-punk band, from Manchester, called Daggers, fronted by a lead singer wearing a ripped vest and skinny jeans, which slip precariously low with his frantic dancing, and a girl in torn fishnets on keyboards and vocals. Despite their rebellious look, they have some commercial-sounding songs that stand out such as 'Souvenir' and 'After Midnight' and deliver a passionate set which the crowd respond to.
Just before the main event, a flickering animated film featuring a strutting robot is projected on to the screen at the back of the stage, building an air of excitement and anticipation, and after a couple of minutes, Robots in Disguise bounce out. The electro-pop duo, Dee Plume and Sue Denim, wearing white RID t-shirts with skinny jeans and visors, play guitar and bass and share vocals. They are accompanied by a drummer who provides the pounding, dancey backbeats. From there on in, it's a frantic thrashy guitar onslaught with shouted vocals and limitless energy. The film continues and Richmond (Noel Fielding's character from 'The IT Crowd') appears. The Fielding connections are that he is reportedly dating Plume and has been known to play with the band on occasion, the two girls have also made a number of appearances in the 'Mighty Boosh' (co-created by Fielding), and they both have his 80s glam hairstyle too!
Their set opens with the danceable 'DJ Gun', complete with robotic voices and audience whooping sound participation. They also perform previous single release, 'The Sex Has Made Me Stupid' and the new single and title track of their current album 'We're in the Music Biz', as well as a raucous cover of the Kinks' 'You Really Got Me', with the girls abandoning their guitars and leaping into the audience, which mostly consists of lots of youngsters with painted faces and glowing jewellery.
The crowd return the band's high energy with screams, bouncing up and down with arms in the air and yelling the words of the choruses back at them. RID indulge in a lot of posturing over the crowd, stage dives and a few trips of crowd-surfing before they are grappled back by security and helped back on stage. For a few of the songs, a couple of silver foil-clad robots dance their way around bashing into the girls and generally adding to the chaos.
RID maintain this energy through an hour long set which includes a few songs in the encore - I missed some of that as Noel Fielding decided to stand right in front of me and strip off a couple of layers, much to the delight of the females in the immediate vicinity how naughty to distract attention from his girlfriend's band like that!
RID's new album was given a favourable review in the Independent on Sunday last weekend and was 'album of the week' in the Sunday Times the previous week. They may just be becoming a moderately successful part of the 'music biz' machine that they like to poke fun at, but theyre still not taking themselves too seriously and seem to be having as much fun as their audience.
Set List
The DJ's Got a Gun
Girl
The Sex Has Made Me Stupid
You Really Got Me
Argument
I'm Hit
Turn It Up
La Nuit
I Live In Berlin
We're in the Music Biz
******
Hot Gossip
Don't Copy Me
Voodoo
article by: Helen O'Sullivan
photos by: Helen O'Sullivan
published: 15/02/2008 14:38
FUTURE GIGS
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