Live Review

Simian Mobile Disco – Glasgow Arches

• 22nd Feb 2008

New rave, what’s that all about? Now old rave, that was about getting into the back of a car and going God knows where to some derelict industrial building or the middle of a field for an adventure. It’s Saturday night and we’re queuing in an orderly fashion outside the Arches to get green wristbands put on us. No, we’re not getting backstage passes or anything, this is because it’s an over-14 gig, and we need these just to get served alcohol.

The arch where this gig is held at least, looks appropriately rave-like, an austere, narrow stone cylinder forcing you to watch the stage where Whip vocalist Bruce Carter is fixing the crowd with his best rock star stare. Risen from the ashes of some band from Manchester that nobody outside of Manchester has heard of, The Whip are being touted as the next great band from Manchester. You get the picture? They do an accomplished electro set, Danny Saville diligently pounding catchy riffs from his keyboard that get the crowd moving, especially for “Trash”, while Carter proves a very watchable frontman. But next Ian Curtis comparisons? Get a grip. Nevertheless they’re a really promising band, and I fancy another crack of the whip maybe in six months, in a more congenial venue.

For, to quote the band’s “Frustration”, “it’s cold outside”, and we’re being forced to queue again, this time for the right to smoke.
That’s nothing though compared to the bar queue, which is hyper-inflated due to the one person per drink policy, in place to foil bibulous 14-year olds, except there are no 14-year olds in the building! The crowd is late teen to twenty-something, so all too young to remember actual old rave, but some have made an effort to carry glow sticks to illuminate their face paint: otherwise it’s a more buttoned-down, Fred Perry an’ cardy indie crowd.
The kids are united though by SMD’s sonic assault. The band make no address to the crowd, they just slam you with blinding strobes and you’re straight into the pounding electro of “Hustler”. Despite the early time slot (they’re on by 9 and finished by 10) they mange to create a full on show that leaves us, dazed and battered, conceding that this generation have found their Chemical Brothers.
But do these kids think that this is what rave is about, as they form orderly queues to leave the building by 10 o’ clock? Since SMD are two of the finest DJs in the UK right now, an aftershow set would have been much appreciated, but this is the fault of the Arches ‘ greed (they’ve got some neddy house night on) and the night ends when it should have been beginning. So the kids file out, some of them gibbering after far too many chemicals for such an early hour to do…what?
Me, I went to a nice dinner party with some artists.