I was in Tunisia. Sunny Tunisia. Full of donkeys, goats, olive trees, Renault Four cars, vélomoteurs, friendly alien camels. I came back on Saturday night. We went to see New Young Pony Club on Sunday night. The Tickets were bought direct from the Box Office (not
Ticketbastard (check this link - it's funny)). They're cute tickets.
There was a brief unpacking and I headed back to town. We had some pizza in Solas. We walked next door to the Village. It was filling up. Support were playing. There were a band stuck in the nineties. Not the ironic entertaining nineties - the Kula Shaker/Oasis nineties. They left after a while. We moved up the front to get a better view.
The village may have been hipster central. We were (by comparison) the mature hipsters. Not the oldest, but certainly above the mean. The gear slowly came out - a Juno 60, a sampler, a Line 6 amp, a drum kit surrounded by fairy lights, a mic stand with a string of tiny chinese lanterns. The drummer appeared to check her kit. She went unnoticed.
The band appeared. They were interesting. Female: singer, synth, drums. Male: guitar and bass. The male element of the group was slightly older and slightly hairier than the female element. Off the shoulder dresses were the order of the day for vox and synth. Drums was bright and summery. The men were cool. The vox was energetic. The youngest of five children. She appreciated the attention. It was a good crowd. Any band would have been happy with our combined enthusiasm.
Soundwise things were great. The Village has good sound, as does Whelan's next door. Shame Tripod couldn't have matched the quality of the smaller neighbours. There may have been an iPod at the drums providing some backing - I thought I heard the soundman checking it before the gig. The key to the band was drums and bass, then the guitar, then the keys on top. Drums were very tight. Very tight. Next to the drums was the bass. About two songs in he turned something that fuzzed it up a little. This new combination of very tight drums and brilliant sounding bass made things special for the rest of the gig. Aside from that it was a bunch of good songs, lots of energy, lots of dancing, lots of chatting from the vox, generally a good time being had by all.
I'm sort of understating it here, but it really was a very good gig. Just the right amount of violence shoved through the band into the crowd. There was a one song encore and they headed off home. They actually just headed downstairs. We saw them there about twenty minutes later.
Afterwards I wandered up and used sign language to request a
setlist.
No-one else cared so he took the time to examine the trodden bassist's list then select the more intact drummer's list (Sarah's).
It had a cock drawn on it.
We hung around the back for a minute then hung around downstairs.
I contemplated robbing an Au Revoir Simone poster but left it too late.
We went back to Merton.
Here's Myspace and Youtube in a Time Capsule.
(yes - I have a very big desktop)
and here are mini's of the setlist:
