Electric Six

This is the first night of the tour, and we are succumbed to the legend of the first night buzz.

The illusion of the band having just flown in on their luxury private plane just a few hours ago, with chaotic roadies and flipped-out wives battling it out against drugged-up groupies is an alluring one, and drifts into my mind as I wait for the main event. The support bands are rendered instantly forgettable by the fact that there are so many fans here tonight who have, as one of them admits, "never been to a gig before", and also because those more in the know are revelling in the atmosphere of what is being billed as the biggest gig in Brighton so far this year.

Electric 6 walk on, smiling manically (a trend which never actually ceases, although, the grin seems to pass from member to member in one bizarre circle around the stage). 'She’s So White' is the first song and it’s an apparent blueprint of the Electric 6 we think we know. An insistent proclamation of a completely camp and joyfully crap slogan. The best one of these in the whole night is indeed from the new single:

“I’ve Got Something to put in you, at the gay bar, GAY BAR!!!!!!!!”

But Electric 6 prove to hit the skids throughout the set. They’re like a bunch of incredibly smooth talking Bronx street hoods who have persuaded the tour guide on his big coach to let them come and say hello, and then they’ve taken it hostage. Except they don’t know how to drive at all. Electric 6 don’t have control of their rock’n’roll. They create a dirge a lot of the time.

‘Danger! High Voltage!', is rather predictably, the only real sparkling moment of tonight’s performance. Despite this, the whole night, is indeed, strangely, pretty great, despite the fact that their novelty band status has already been hammered in. This is because Electric 6 are themselves coolly strange: The singer looks and acts like Jim Carrey in ‘Man On The Moon.’ The rest of them look like a more brazen, sexed-up Village People, including the incredibly tiny, impish drummer. They take the piss out of the White Stripes several times. But, hey, at the end of the day, whatever

The whole thing is superficial as fk, but there are a number of bands out now that are getting recognition for being different, a ‘movement’ that **Jack White was instrumental in forming. And three years down the line, Electric 6 are another band carrying the flame (although, their obsession with fire probably means I probably shouldn’t have just said that.