I really hated MTV's Unplugged series.What was the point,
I thought, of taking someone like The Cure who's normal
oevre was crafted layers of distorted electric guitar, synth,
vocals and drums and sucking all the life out of it? Turning
it into muzak! ... wimpy nonsense for non-music people! And
no, I wouldn't listen to people who said that stripping things
back revealed the beauty behind the thing. What it revealed
was that some people will do anything for a buck and others
just didn't get it. Commercially it was a great success of
course, still might be for all I know.
And so I was mildly horrified to turn up for a night of
the iTunes festival in Berlin ... a night featuring
take-no-prisoners guitar rock from locals Jennifer Rostock and
Essex's own, The Subways ... to discover that The Subways
drummer, Josh, was sick, and that the remaining two, Billy and
Charlotte, were going to do an 'acoustic set'. Yikes!
Jennifer Rostock is a five piece with Jennifer (?) doing
the vocals and a lot of stage coverage. The locals are into to
them straight away but the earlier songs smack too much for me
of the Soviet-style pomp rock, with lots of overblown musical
statements and a fair bit of histrionics from the singer as
well. At the end of the set though we had some nice high-energy
rock that set most feet moving.
Then a gap while the stage people set up for The Subways. I
was hoping to catch a word with them and thought I would if they
appeared in the public area (which Jennifer Rostock did). I
thought, if they were closeted backstage there was a good chance
they'd be working on what they were going to do and wouldn't be
particularly thrilled to see me. They didn't appear outside
and so after a beer on the terrace by the river,I went back in.
Not completely acoustic was the first good news. Charlotte's
bass guitar and amp were onstage plus an acoustic guitar and
chair for Billy. A Swiss girl asked me what they were like and
I said 'who knows?! normally they rock more than somewhat'. They
were onstage as kids and their combination of rocking
seriously and pleasant innocence (no fake world-weary cynicism)
drew a lot of fans to them - kids and adults. A few years later,
they've been around the block a few times but the patina remains
much the same, and the idea too, although the actual music is
beginning to get more complex and a few of these sorts of songs
will appear on the next album due sometime this year.
The actual gig wasn't too bad. It was, as it had to be,
different. Billy sat and played and sang and yelled and
Charlotte danced about doing her bass lines and yowling the odd
line or two into her mic. She looked cute as a button as usual.
And no-one walked out - in fact it was a very supportive
audience - more power to them.
And so, The Subways semi-unplugged wasn't too bad. But this
wasn't a gimmick: It was an effort to provide some sort of show
and where the difficulty of the conditions created both a little
danger onstage and quite a lot of involvement off it.
Kudos to the people at Radial System V for creating a nice
atmosphere for the festival as well.
(thunderfinger)
Mstation Pop etc Commentary, Reviews
pre Dec 04 reviews are here
Sun, 06 Jul 2008
