The Immediate

Who says rock music doesn’t teach you anything? We learn two valuable lessons tonight:

1) It is impossible to shout “Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies – Top of the Pops!” after five-and-a-half pints.

2) Shut up Gen, Seafood DO BLOODY WELL NOT SOUND LIKE MY* SODDING *VITRIOL.

Tonight is an odd bill. GOOD, COS I’M SO SICK OF THE SAME VENUES PUTTING TOGETHER THE SAME BILLS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. The aforementioned “very special guests” Seafood ditch their planned acoustic set in honour of one thing – To Rock. Not only that, but it’s a set mostly comprising of songs from As The Cry Flows, which has now implemented itself as Seafood’s finest work to date. So that’s alright then. (See: Manchester review)

Then we have YMSS looking and sounding all grown up. It even takes Hamish several songs before he gets his shirt off this time. After them it’s Art Brut – and sorry to be all unprofessional and rebuke a previous live review on this very site, but Eddie Argos has more charisma in his little finger than pretty much the entire London scene put together. You love this band and you know it, you whore. Top of the Pops!

But you lovely regular DiS readers are fully aware of these pop groups already, so we need not speak of them (serious boozing may also have dictated this). No. Our primary objective is to introduce you to two newbies, and you can thank us later (mine’s a diet coke, cheers).

It’s The Immediate’s first show outta Dublin. The people who bothered to turn up early are treated to an initially baffling then increasingly glorious set. To a music journalist’s chagrin, they’re very difficult to pin down: if it’s possible to mix some of the best elements of Clinic (drone-pop), Pavement (discordant power chords), Radiohead (epic tendencies), Aereogramme (buggered time signatures and gentle vocals) and The Monkees (cheese), then someone’s just done that. Why, we even pick out hints of fellow should’ve-been-massive-by-now Dubliners The Frames in there. The singer ditches his guitar and starts dancing on the floor. DiS swoons. It’ll take you three songs to love this band.

Following them, it’s someone whose star is going to be shining rather brightly rather quickly, blonde Norwegian singer/songwriter Kari Kleiv, playing to a transfixed audience. Much like it is with The Immediate, sometimes it’s hard to tell where she’s coming from: funky foot-stompers make way for simple ballads, some of which have a cheeky kookiness which is more Erin McKeown than it is Phoebe Buffey (her off ‘Friends’) – it’s in the latter where the banter seems to have come from. The songs are perhaps not lyrically interesting enough for her to gain any kind of cult fanbase, the upshot of which is there’s a far broader appeal lying in wait. Your dad will fancy her. And your mum.

It was also nice that the audience managed to shut the fuck up during and in-between the songs. That’s poncey arts venues for you.