Reviewed by Lucky.
My gig attending / reviewing plans have not gone well of late. First of all, I planned to attend Goldie Lookin’ Chain's gig at the Warehouse last Thursday, arrived at the venue an hour early to make sure I got tickets, and was informed that I was in fact 2 days early and the gig was on Saturday. On the Saturday, Cobra Kai were playing at the Moorings alongside Ghosts Of Progress, Ghost In The Machine, and The Super Six Funk Machine. As we were in our normal “first band on” slot, I was planning to come offstage, grab a pint and watch the other three bands for the purpose of reviewing. However, as soon as I got offstage I was dragged to the Crown & Anchor for a karaoke night (quick review – the guy that did “New York New York" was good. My mate who did “Mysterious Girl”, not so much). Finally, I planned to head for the Fat Hippy Showcase night at Café Drummonds this past Friday in order to catch the debut gig of new Aberdeen band The Deportees, made up of former members of Edgar Prais, 10 Easy Wishes and Eddison, and also to see Soothsayer, a Glasgow-based 5-piece made up of several ex-bandmates of mine. Unfortunately however, this date clashed with my office Christmas party, and as I was on the vino from 12noon, I seriously doubted whether I would be in any fit state to be reviewing anything by the time the Deportees took to the stage at 8pm. As it turned out, I headed home at 6pm to get a wee rest from drinking and get something to eat, got in to my flat, made a cup of tea, sat down in front of the X-Files and promptly fell asleep. When I woke up it was 8pm and the Deportees were due on stage – by the time I got changed, had a snack and battled my way through snow and ice to reach Drummonds, The Deportees were finished, all my mates had fucked off and Soothsayer were halfway through their set. Another epic failure from Aberdeen’s most half-assed fanzine.
Soothsayer, from what I saw of them were kind of like an experimental Placebo. Their songs all seemed to clock in at around 7 or 8 minutes, had lots of changes and had a faint emo tinge to them. Their use of three guitars along with a pounding bass really filled out their sound to create a really thick “wall of sound” effect, unlike any other band I’ve seen recently, and while this certainly gave some welly to the heavier parts of their songs, it sounded a little cluttered in the softer parts. I didn’t see enough of them to review their set properly, but I did see enough to say that I was really impressed by them and I’ll be looking out for them up this way in future.
And so, having gone to all that trouble to get back in to town to see 20 minutes of music, I decided to stick around and watch the next band, Captain FACE, a band I’ve never really taken the time to listen to, despite (or maybe because of!) them being a big favourite of my girlfriend. Hailing from “the mythical land of Kinmundy, Aberdeenshire”, wherever the fuck that is, they are a five-piece who play the sort of poppy funk-rock you might experience if you blended together Faith No More, Kaiser Chiefs and Terrorvision, all high-octane, energetic songs with crunchy guitar riffs and more hooks than a fishing tackle shop.
The first thing that strikes you, especially if you are a FACE virgin, like me, is the stage presence of this band. Singer Euan twists himself around the microphone stand and bosses the front of the stage like a less-twatty Ricky Wilson, and delivers witty lyrics and catchy choruses while bedecked in a red knitted Christmas jumper with a set of Christmas lights wound round him, and a Santa hat. To his right their guitarist channels the spirit of Angus Young, gurning and strutting up and down the stage with a Gibson SG, and to his left their bassist pounds away at his 4-string, sings / yells backing vocals and is wearing a bright orange T-shirt which reads “Your Face Is Shit”. Watching the FACE do their thing, you just don’t want to look away for a second in case you miss something. This band look, and sound, as though they are really enjoying themselves, and it’s infectious – the whole venue has a great atmosphere while the FACE are onstage, and down at the front people are dancing, jumping around and singing along. I didn’t catch the names of all the songs, though the tracks that stood out for me were “Small Joy” an upbeat catchy number with an extremely energetic chorus, and the barmy “Awesome No Way”, which I’m told has become the signature song of Captain FACE, and quite rightly so, because it’s fantastic, all funky guitars, a shout-along chorus and an infectious melody that makes you want to jump and flail around like an ADHD kid who’s high on E-numbers. The only low point of the set was the closing song “Credit Crunch Christmas”, a low-key and oddly empty-sounding song which was a very peculiar choice to sign off such a high-energy set, and was met with an air of indifference.
The live FACE experience is definitely something worth catching – I regret that it’s taken me 6 years to actually get round to seeing them, and I will most definitely check them out again. They may not be doing anything terribly original, but if you want to go to a fun gig with a party atmosphere, dance around like a tit and enjoy yourself immensely, you could do a lot worse than Captain FACE. In fact, you might you say you should “FACE” the music and dance! Ho ho ho! See what I did there?
Rating - ****
Captain FACE on MySpace.
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