Art Brut

Without wanting to sound like a certain creepy moon-walker, it’s always great to see music getting the kids excited. It’s fitting tonight as Eddie Argos pogos away like a spoilt brat force fed dangerously fizzy sweets while demanding “I want children on buses singing your name”.

In spaces normally reserved for balding rockers stinking of stale rollies and cheap cider, there are actually youngsters down the front tonight. ‘What they all need is another fucking war to stop this tuneless rubbish’, no doubt.

But despite the nation-dividing vocal caterwauling, there is a pop factory of tunes manufactured by Art Brut’s merry band of freaks. Fantastically, the guitarists resemble a Sid look-alike and a bank manager respectively, while the drummer plays the whole set standing up Mo Tucker-style. Argos is the real stand-up however, with the band playing the straight man Wise to his bouncy Morecombe banter throughout.

“Ready Art Brute?” he deadpans for each song before launching into art-punk tirades which often sound suspiciously like the one which preceded it. The ironic nods and post-modern winks occasionally grate, but when a band has more cheek than a toilet roll advert it becomes clear that people need this timely kick up the arse.

“No more songs about crack or being poor”, pleads Argos and it all evokes long lost summer holidays with memories of first loves (‘Emily Kane’), wanting to run away (‘Moving To LA’) and bad cock jokes (pretty much the rest of the set).

Those who left the grown ups in the car and brought their inner child probably had more fun than a kid with a golden ticket to a chocolate factory. As ‘Formed A Band’ attests: “It’s not rock n roll, I’m just talking to the kids.”