The Beta Band

“Our sound is the future” insist The Magnificents, “I’ve seen the blueprint it’s written in concrete.”

Sadly, only 14 other people witness their sporadic foray into the most bovine areas of the past (think John Foxx-era Ultravox, Cabaret Voltaire’s avant garde feedback discoveries and… Joy Division) which would possibly devour the most sanguine Michael J Fox wannabes among us.

Yeah it’s been done before. Ask your parents. Yeah the singer has a significant case of Tourettes syndrome matched only by Eamon whats-his-name’s foul tongue and Ian Curtis’ spasmodic out-of-time “dancing” to his colleagues’ deelie-bopping beats.

Still, if the Magnificents herald a recycled vision of Edinburgh circa 1984, then seeing the Beta Band in the Leadmill again is like stepping back in time (BC – Before Coldplay to be exact) where the thought of a bunch of musicians creating chilled out rhythmic séances to stoned beats wasn’t quite the puke induced format Martin, Knights et al latterly created.

Sure, the cynics will hold their hands up and cry that the Betas haven’t exactly “progressed” in the last six years, still playing the same venues to the same bewildered yet largely beguiled audience, but those of us indebted to the defensive skills of Michael Dawson will immediately draw their attention to the merits of latest album ‘Heroes To Zeroes’ – of which 10 of its 12 songs are aired tonight – as a startling reminder of why the Beta Band are such an important, nee vital cog in the revitalised machinery of British music.

See, if there was no Beta Band with their exquisite sub-baggy, pontificating shanties deconstructing all from Slim Whitman to the Happy Mondays and beyond, there would be no Coral, no Zutons, and possibly no other sub-generic tribe of outcasts existing beyond the realms of all things retro and errrm... Jet.

When Steve Mason introduces ‘Inner Meet Me’ as “THAT song off the second EP that starts nowhere and ends somewhere else” before segueing into a plaintive rendition of ‘Squares’ that renders I-Monster’s trip-happy alternative version to a mere supporting role.

Tonight is the first night of the tour, which also happens to be keyboard player John MacLean’s birthday, and despite his bashful efforts to remain staid and lonesome behind his extensive speaker stack, Mason and bassist Richard Green lure him out to a furtive chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ which is usurped only by the sampled dogs barking joyfully on forthcoming single ‘Out-Side’.

Despite the absence of perennial favourite ‘Dry The Rain’, the Beta Band have an almost endless supply of new material which leaves the past truly dead and buried – something which is never more obvious in the fact that NOTHING from their first album is included in tonight’s set – and the fact that they seemingly have no wish to succumb to the pressures of the fashionista be it past, present or future means their worth as Britain’s most backwards-glancing forward-thinkers remains firmly intact.