May 09 2008 10:59 am,
CSS / The Futureheads / MGMT
07/05/2008
Tonight is the last of MTV’s ‘Spanking New Music’ tour, which has featured over the last month, as it does tonight, a rotating set of fairly predictable but strong line-ups touring Britain — few of which strike me as ‘spanking new’, but there you are.
The only actually new act of the evening, MGMT, are up first this evening, and found bounding into ‘Electric Feel’ before the doors have barely opened. Away from the studio, the live five-piece set-up is less the polychromatic swirls of space-pop found on their debut, and has more the feel of a conventional 70s throwback guitar outfit. Proggy, but still danceable. Andrew Van Wyngarden’s zany vocals drift between Jake Shears and Daniel Johnston, and they rollick through a taster of their strong pack of songs, proving their stadium cred with spellbinding surges of harsh synth and drum-driving moments of brilliant psyche-pop wig-out. Allocated barely a five-song set, though, leaves them no time to warm the crowd — who are further deprived of album anthem ‘Kids’, much to their audible dismay — and they bow out the end of their set with extensive solar-soloing and shoegaze wah-wahing, but with barely a hello or goodbye.
The Futureheads, on the other hand, get over an hour to pillage us with their brutal if tuneful offbeat pop — knocking through a fairly quick-paced set for, if anything, a bit too long to an MGMT-deprived room. It doesn’t do much to spruce up the Academy’s limp, lifeless crowd — all heels and glowsticks, nodding lamely — but, fair enough, it’s still light outside and they haven’t got around to ‘Hounds Of Love’ yet. They push forward some new material off the forthcoming ‘This Is Not The World’, which balances less of their neat punk-pop harmonies with more of their rowdy but smoothly collected art-rock punch — all of which is fine, if a little dull. The jerky mod-ness of ‘Skip To The End’ proves a highlight if still doing little to impress our antsy crowd. With a fairly fruitful line-up, you’ve got to wonder what they’re here for.
CSS’ cat-suited fruitloop Lovefoxxx is about all you could wish for to kindle a little energy, then. Only after spewing out balloons, confetti, hit singles and an actual hand-waving dance routine are they whipped up enough for her to crowd-surf without dropping like a lead balloon. Also out to promote new material — all-rhythm, synthy power-pop, but still at parts sounding like a bubblegum-deprived Shampoo — it’s all up-tempo theatrics and shouty gymnastics. But the bouncy electropopping of ‘Let’s Make Love…’ and ‘Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex’ to the sight of Lovefoxxx skipping over her mic lead beneath a ten-foot floral wreath is the stuff that predictably goes down the best, and even sees a visibly energetic and enthused crowd at last. It is, after all, pretty difficult to actively dislike a CSS performance.
Jeremy Kingsley
