Electric Six

‘Fire in the disco’......Nope. ‘We’re starting a fire’........Nope. There is no smoke on this dancefloor. The only evidence of steam is the kind of steam being exhaled from the mouths of some very static punters. Electric Six came to show Birmingham how to party, but the odds were stacked firmly against them from the beginning.

Firstly, the venue was freezing. Seriously freezing. It may have been more apt to entitle the gig ’Electric Six on Ice’. Secondly, Kidsymphony were enlisted to warm the audience up. They should've dished out hats and scarves. That would've been more effective, certainly more so than shockingly average indie pop music, rock hero posing and all the excitement of a Mansun b-side. Electric Six on the other hand, brought with them a cool image, and in ’Synthesiser’_, _'Electric Demons in Love’ and ’Remote Control Me’ some fantastic songs, but there was still something missing. The odds against them warming up this audience were growing. The cold was getting so bad that it seemed that the sound engineer had developed frostbite in his fingertips, rendering Dick Valentine's vocals indistinguishable.

Two new tracks were aired, musically harder, less funky, more hard-rock based but marred by the aforesaid sound quality. This wasn't a problem with ’Danger! High Voltage’, the song that finally got everyone pogoing and singing along. In such a cold environment it should've been put in the set a lot earlier in. Of course, by the end of the set they dropped ’Gay Bar’, which saw Electric Six FINALLY hit Economy Seven.

2003 has been good to Electric Six, and seeing that this was their last UK gig of the year, it was a shame to see them go out with a whimper as opposed to the bang we were expecting. Still, it's inevitable that 2004 will see the band re-light their fire.