Hot Hot Heat

Once again I find myself sitting down in my living room, wearing slippers and sipping a hot cup of tea, contemplating whether or not 10.30 is too early to go to bed; such is the order of early gigs these days.

Oran Mor’s strict curfew of 10 O’Clock had been met with fastidious obduracy, and after a string of early gigs, I’m beginning to wonder if the whole of the music industry has forgotten to turn their clocks back in accordance with Greenwich Mean Time.

No real matter, as Canadian four piece Hot Hot Heat managed a full hearty set of songs taken from their nine year history, performing in what was actually the first gig of this tour.



Ridiculous curly afro haircuts are hardly the epitome of cool; and the job of making this style fashionable is in the hands of Hundred Reasons, that guy from The Strokes, and err…Mick Hucknall, but to my amusement I spotted a few curly afro impersonators in the crowd, so unless lead singer Steve Bays has a pretty exhaustive extended family, then I reckon this could be the start of a worrying fashion trend – probably best that we stamp it out as soon as possible.

Bay’s grating vocals have an annoyingly sharp pitch, and he spends most of the time wailing like one of those little yappy dogs that bark at you whenever you walk anywhere near their territory. He did apologise for having a “f*cked voice”, and if it wasn’t for the fact his vocals always sound this nasally and irritating I might have let him off.


Having their greatest hit snubbed by Radio 1 never did Hot Hot Heat any favours and the anthemic potential of ‘Bandages’ was never really met, restricted to an average 25th in the charts. The song was discredited for the repeated word ‘bandages’ being vaguely associated with the Iraq war. Yet the BBC will quite happily air songs by rap artists about driving off bridges with your girlfriend tied up in the trunk. Go figure.

Unsurprisingly ‘Bandages’ still gets the biggest cheer of the night, and if it wasn’t for the fans’ dedicated recital of Hot Hot Heat lyrics you could easily be forgiven for thinking they were a bit of a one hit wonder. It’s a great indie tune and one that threatens to be regarded as a classic, standing out in the set as a clear bench mark of what Hot Hot Heat are clearly capable of.


Although the best crowd reactions are reserved for ‘No, Not Now’ and the fantastic indie disco phenomena that is ‘Talk To Me, Dance To Me’, the group are here to promote their latest album ‘Happiness LTD’, and much of the set list is comprised of newer material that appears to wash over the heads of the majority of the Oran Mor crowd tonight.



Spiky guitars and a keyboard accompaniment is the backbone of Hot Hot Heat songs and it quickly becomes apparent that their repertoire is built around a very tried and tested formulae. It’s great for Strokes-style sub-standard indie fans, but apart from the aforementioned ‘Bandages’ it all gets a little too samey.

The gig closed rather aptly with ‘Good Night’, or should that actually be ‘Good Evening?’, after all, it’s only just gone 9.30.

FUTURE GIGS

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