Male Bonding, Pens & Veronica Falls CAMP Basement, London 27/5/10
5/5
By: Yousif Nur
What better response to those who have rendered British music obselete and throw-away in 2010? It would be to look at these three acts, simple as.
The Brits, it’s fair to say, have taken a bit of stick for the lacking of some quality in the supply chain of bands we have in our otherwise proud history in modern music of late. Now the folks across the pond in a cyclical motion have taken back the indie rock baton, placing them as firmly as double-strength super glue in front running. But said remarks are a little unfair and disparaging towards a lot of DIY acts emerging from London at present, a scene that’s keeping it simple, keeping it organic and wholesome, but above all, keeping it real.
That can be very much said of tonight's acts, the Sub Pop-signed trio Male Bonding, all-girl act Pens and the Phil Spector/Ronettes inspired Veronica Falls. In keeping with the DIY ethos, they're indeed the embodiment of said realness.
Veronica Falls play a jagged collection of sugary pop tunes with the hooks in the right places. It’s a strangling, arresting wall of sound, particularly on ‘Found In A Graveyard’ which results in a sound akin to Velvet Underground trading their sixties avant-garde vehicle in for a Cadillac to show off to the madding crowd for a top ten hit. It works well, as the unison of nodding heads and shuffling of shoulders is a universal body language can constitute in a thumbs up.
Pens look like they know how to have fun on stage, with the female-trio every so often trading instruments with one another being all smiles and giggles, despite slight malfunctions with their micro-Casio keyboard at the tail end of their set. Although it was also pretty difficult to hear any bass anywhere (because there wasn’t any), it would be harsh to be too disparaging to a band who are, if nothing else, an enjoyable twenty minutes or so of jovial, plug-and-play rock.
Sticking to threesomes, Male Bonding are by this point hot and ready, and so are the sold out crowd – it’s time for this album launch to take off. They play track-by-track of their debut Nothing Hurts as they exclaims, 'This is like an ATP ‘Don't Look Back’ show for us, though we're over this album already'. An enthused bunch of fans crowdsurf every other ten seconds, leaping in what looked like forward somersaults mid-air with emphatic ease. You'd have thought they were being marked out of ten by judging onlookers with placards for technical leaps, skill and finish. The basement area of new London haunt CAMP is the ideal venue for a sweatbox gig like this - the ceilings are low, the stage on a near-even keel, and there's an air of industrial spit 'n' sawdust harking back to 80's hardcore shows in D.C.
So that's aplomb, emphaticness and taking it back to basics. If that's not keeping it real I don't know what is.
Artists in this article: Veronica Falls, PENS, Male Bonding
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