Gig Review: Voxtrot, Manchester Night & Day, 22nd February 2007
When we saw Voxtrot at this same venue last August we also had the misfortune to see The Zetlands, a dire blues outfit who should only be allowed to play weddings, albeit ones that I’m not attending. I don’t know who did the booking that night but, sandwiched between the The Needles and Voxtrot, The Zetlands were plain wrong. Well, the same person must have booked the support for last Thursday’s gig as well because The Troubadours (yes, The Troubadours – if you can think of a less inspiring name for a band then I’d like to hear it) were shocking. The Liverpool music scene is stagnant, and has been since the early Eighties. Since then the likes of Cast, The Coral, The Zutons and The Dead ’60s have all had varying amounts of success but have drawn heavily on the past and offered little in the way of originality, or even decent tunes. The Troubadours are the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the Liverpool music scene. We could tell where they were from after hearing just a few a bars of the Coral-esque opener. There was a song that sounded like Cast and another like The Zutons. It was grim stuff and the fact that the singer managed to get the worst sound I’ve ever heard coming from an acoustic 12-string made it almost unbearable. The icing on the cake was the last song, “My Generation”. Yes, you heard right, they did a cover of “My Generation” a good ten years after the Gallaghers consigned that song to the thou-shalt-never-cover-me-again bin. It went on for ages and at one point the singer cleverly changed the lyrics to “just because we shag around”, the wag. I sat, head in hands, unable to even look at the debacle occuring on stage.
I was so numbed by The Troubadours that I barely remember the second band on, including their name, but I do remember that they were so bland that we were having trouble thinking of any musical reference points at all.
Voxtrot were great; they had to be, it would have been a really depressing night if they had been anything but. Starting with the three title tracks of their EPs was a great idea and “Mother, Sister, Daughters & Wives” sounded particularly good. Despite the occasional technical problem and the odd mic stand with a mind of its own, Voxtrot played with a great amount of joy and enthusiasm, bouncing around the stage with all the energy that their sprightly songs demand.
About three songs in events took a comedic turn. A tall, drunken guy made his way clumsily through the sparse crowd and pushed right in front of the small girl standing at the front to JustHipper’s immediate right, leaving the poor girl exasperated that all she could see now was the back of a grubby white shirt. JustHipper, who is very small and is regularly pissed off by really tall men standing directly in front of her at gigs, acting like she doesn’t exist, began remonstrating with the guy, asking him if he realised what he had done and why it was wrong. The guy thought she was having a go at him cos he was dancing, which was not the case. Just as “Raised By Wolves” was ending she was raving at him and when the sound died the entire venue could clearly hear the words “…and that makes you a big cock!”. The band briefly looked to see what was happening before sadly deciding not to get involved and carrying on with some new songs. The guy sloped off during the next song, tail between legs.
The three new songs the band played, all of which, Ramesh claimed, might make the album, were typically dense, literate and poppy, so no great departure there, and all three augur well for their debut when it’s finally released. They also played a great version of “Soft And Warm” with Ramesh playing keyboards and closed the set with a decidedly Cure-esque “Missing Pieces”. Hopefully next time they’re over here they’ll be playing to larger crowds and have support bands that actually have something in common with them.
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