Gig review of The Long Blondes + The Lodger

The cross-over between the audience for tonight's gig and that for last week's visit to the same venue by the NME's "Indie Rave" tour is not great.  However, both events have been notable for the considerable presence of devotees, keen to pay homage to their heroes through their mode of dress.  Where last week we were subjected to the garish presence of the day-glo army, tonight's audience have clearly taken the retro-chic of The Long Blondes to heart.  At the bar your reviewer finds himself sandwiched between a brace of Kate Jackson look-alikes.  This serves to not only take the edge off yet another lengthy wait for bad beer, but also to remind one that 2007 is not all about crazies with glow sticks.  Thank goodness that, amongst all the brashness, there is still room for the indie staples of disenfranchisement and brooding detachment within the current milieu.

Having said that, there is yet a certain chutzpah demanded of those that shall be elected as the mouthpieces of the downtrodden, tongue-tied and reclusive.  Thinking back to the likes of Morrissey and Jarvis, their chief success seems to have been in taking the insecurities and concerns they shared with many into a wider arena through sheer force of presence.  Whilst we are furnished tonight with real evidence that The Long Blondes are taking their own slightly introspective agenda out into the open, support act The Lodger seem to exemplify what can happen when similar thoughts are couched within a less ear-catching musical framework.

This is not to say that The Lodger's efforts are entirely without worth.  This must be the fifth time I've seen them, and I have tried exceptionally hard to like them.  Their songs are the sort that are impossible to hate but the problem for me, at least, is that they seem to boil down to an amorphous mush of slightly insipid musings.  Again I feel that this band are one brilliant musical idea away from being something genuinely worthwhile, but whenever the musicianship (now really rather tight and accomplished - especially with the full-time addition of the extremely detached-looking Katie on drums) builds up to a potentially memorable refrain, we return again to a slightly wet and uninspired chorus.  Some of these choruses are crying out for weighty harmonies, but there's only one mic.  It belongs to Ben, and unfortunately 'arresting delivery' is still for him an alien concept.

So, this lot have filled an available gap in proceedings.  Economic necessity sometimes requires their temporary presence but, as for lodgers in general, there aren't too many tears shed upon their departure.  What we're waiting for are the genuine long-term occupants of this spotlight.  I refer, of course, to The Long Blondes.  And I suppose it is rather unfair to refer to them as disenfranchised outsiders, because they're probably the prettiest bunch of geeks in the business.  But I suppose this tag of 'librarian chic' still seems to hang about them and, to a certain extent, still rings true - however 'indie' Dorian may wear his locks, or however vampy Kate (tonight posing as a suburban Cleopatra in hotpants) may appear.

Apart from their proudly-worn cultural reference points (these chaps clearly read plenty of the books of which they were once custodians), the trademark sound is a real selling point.  I don't suppose that I had hitherto noticed just how important Screech's drums were, but the darkly earnest vibe that permeates all their best tunes seems to stem from heavy forward-pushing sticks work, a vibe in which the retro 50s / 60s bass work (supplied by Reenie, tonight sporting a fetching Julie Andrews look) is also complicit.

For me, however, the most interesting dynamic in this band is between Dorian, principal lyricist, and his singer.  The former has written the vast majority of the songs and one never quite knows, from one song to the next, whether he has written them from his own perspective, or that to be assumed by his female mouthpiece.  Apart from the well documented sexual ambiguity of 'Once and Never Again', I was intrigued to listen again to 'A Knife for the Girls' in the (reported) knowledge that Emma (keyboard, guitar and Dorian's long-term squeeze) still has a house in Harehills.  The mysterious lyric featuring this unsung suburb certainly gets the full impassioned husky vocal treatment tonight, and it's almost possible to envisage the gang, in glorious black and white, embroiled there in some sort of philosophically profound yet emotionally-charged exchange... the depth and understated intensity of the 60s Rive Gauche brought to the North East of Leeds in the 21st century.

The Long Blondes always seemed to have something interesting to offer; darker, deeper and more mysterious than many of their more obvious contemporaries.  It is possible that their ambition and intellectual muscle initially outstripped their musical capabilities, but tonight's show amply demonstrated that their sound now stands on its own merits - with or without the lyrical profundity.  My only regret is that I seemed to be stationed amongst the chin-strokers on the left, rather than the livelier contingent on the right who were more than content to dance.  It is to the Blondes' credit, however, that they continue to successfully straddle both camps.