Apr 18 2008 9:30 am,
XX Teens
15/04/08
No one can really accuse XX Teens of being style over substance. The Fly has witnessed more charismatic PowerPoint presentations than their Long Blondes support slot performance tonight.
Anyone here who has seen the video to ‘Darlin’’ would be forgiven for thinking that they have stumbled across the wrong band. No surreal Technicolor costumes, no raw fish scoffing and no choreography here; no, everything is rather, well, sensible. Frankly this is a shame as the swirling psychedelic bass lines, barbed hooks and Simon Munnery-esque lyrical humour are rather enchanting on record. Had the band not looked so apologetic and seemed to have given a monkey’s then the polite crowd could have been enchanted too.
Perhaps the size of the venue over-awed them or perhaps they had just woken up before coming on stage but XX Teens’ Fall-like schizophrenia needs to be executed a little more acerbically and vivaciously to really get booties bouncing. Close your peepers and you can imagine a skeleton’s ball with zombies doing the twist and giant insects hand jiving in formation. Open them and it seems as if five supply teachers have formed a band as therapy after all suffering nervous breakdowns.
The carnival lacked confrontation so much so that your Fly correspondent had to suppress urges to jump over the barrier, on to the stage screaming; “Punch me in the face! Go on, as hard as you can! Hit me! HIT ME!”
Andy
