CUT COPY emerge with absolutely no fuss, look at least my age if not older, and just crack on. It was a little methodical, perhaps, and not all the noise we got was live, but it didn’t matter. They knew what they were doing.
There were layers. Nice layers. Guitar layers. They’d build. They’d go. They’d be fun. I want to see them again, and they definitely didn’t play for long enough.
A random fourth member would pop on and play a little guitar, then saunter off again, no questions asked.
They’d sound like Depeche Mode one moment and then like something else from childhood after that – a little bit of a theme song or a beat from a song you only slightly recall. In a really good way. My mate said it was “the perfect blend of 80s and 90s dance music”. I’m not big on the dance output of either decade, but I’m willing to accept that as a summary. It felt right.
Xylophone was used, coming from a great little noise box that I wanted to play with. It looked like a Xylophone, and sounded very much like one as well. So, naturally, I assumed it was. But then the next song it sounded just like a keyboard, and then after that it was belting out the wonderful Depeche Mode sounds.
I was too absorbed by this point. My notes have become a lot more brief (I couldn’t find my sexy small notepad, and decided my phone would be a perfect substitute - it wasn’t) but I’ll share them with you:
4th [song]. Good. 5th. Well Jacko [as in Michael Jackson] start. Kicks off. Implores the crowd to dance. “Not played a wrong ‘un yet” [I think that was my mate again]. Lights and Music. Sexy smooth start. Kicks in. Nice.
Then all I’ve got is Hearts on Fire - last song.
The moral of this tale? Phones aren’t notepads, enjoying yourself too much leads to less fun for you, the reader.
What you should take from it? That CUT COPY is a good thing. They should be enjoyed. You should go, be merry, and get your dance on. There will be little loops and twinkles and things that remind you of allsorts of stuff. Just love it and get down with it. It’s kinda cheesy; it kinda could’ve been pop music 10 years or so ago. But it’s good and it gets you going.
www.myspace.com/cutcopy
Listen to: Lights and Music, So Haunted and Hearts on Fire
8.45pm sharp, before the joys of Cut Copy, some young ‘uns take to the stage. There’s the odd polite whoop, and a splattering of applause ripples around the increasingly full crowd. The singer looks like Maxxie off of Skins and well. That’s about it. They’re called KELHAM CRISIS.
The first song made little impression on me while the second one was a little better. It was quicker; there was an ever-so ever-so slight element of Interpol in the singer’s delivery. And there was some synth. Prominent synth. So that was nice.
Then another song of nothingness came along and then an organ based song. I appreciated this. It was slower, with more ambiance. Out of Season I believe they called it. The most promising song they played, but it’s not the finished article by any stretch. It just flips. The singer’s voice becomes droney and it all seems a bit like Keane or something.
The crowd agrees, and trips to and from the bar seem to pick up, for myself as well as everyone else, it seems. One chap is bobbing. He could be a plant though – it turns out the whoops at the start came from Maxxie’s, (as I shall now call him,) sister.
As you may have guessed, I was no big fan. They all seemed very young as well, but that’s just the grey bits in my beard talking. In a few years they could be interesting, or very very anonymous.
www.myspace.com/kelhamcrisis
(They sound better on myspace)
By Ben Hayes
