The Long Blondes - London Astoria - 20/2/07
5/5
By: Matt Tomiak
Now, I love The View and all, but just think, for a second, about the thematic content of 'Same Jeans', the track that brought them into the national musical consciousness. It was a song that, above all else, celebrates poor personal hygiene and glaring sartorial inadequacy. What with the grubby, hirsute Scots-urchins The Fratellis nabbing the British Breakthrough Act at the Brits last week, Donny Tourette and Johnny Borrell stepping out with haircuts that make Worzel Gummidge appear well-groomed, and Pete Doherty's perennially grimy antics played out in the tabloids all the while, it's enough to make you feel just a bit...unclean.
Thank heavens then, for The Long Blondes: svelte, sophisticated, supremely well-scrubbed and highly unlikely ever to pen a song celebrating the postponement of laundry day. Tonight at The Astoria, the Sheffield quintet are also confident enough to chuck away possibly their best three tracks straight away: the slinky 'Lust In The Movies' is followed by the soul-baring relationship treatise 'Weekend Without Makeup'. Then a nice bit of repartee. 'Anyone have any trouble getting here?' winks Jackson. 'Anyone get ID'd? 'Is anyone here 14?... 15?... 16?... 17? ...18? ...NINETEEN?' With a whoop of recognition the band sweep into the lustrous-but-shattering teen melodrama of 'Once And Never Again.'
They then proceed to rattle through the rest of their 'Someone To Take You Home' LP, peppered with the odd non album track, with the lithe Jackson pouting, twisting and strutting away with abandon, whilst her four guy n' girl band cohorts exude an icy detachment. The dizzy, electrifying shoutalong finale of 'Separated By Motorways' provides a fitting conclusion. It makes you wonder why, when it comes to live indie performance, we so often settle for gangs of unattractive blokes in polo shirts and tracksuit tops staring glumly at their trainers from behind lank floppy fringes.
Blessed with the rare gift of empathy, whether fame and fortune will dilute The Long Blondes' ability to produce these staggeringly shrewd, insightful vignettes of love, loss and the giddy traumas of youth remains to be seen. Right now, though, they might just be the most perfect pop band of our age.
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