Kill All Hippies

Kill All Hippies

21 July, 2008
by: Marcus

A night of electro disco frenzy at the Angel Centre

Theoretical Girl/These New Puritans/Calvin Harris

With the crowd unquestionably attracted by the headliner, and that song in particular, the support acts are up against it here. Luckily for Theoretical Girl, she does at least have the aesthetics to please a crowd that is mostly male, and entirely inebriated. Playing with a full group these days, her sound is much better for it, even if her backing band seems slightly nervous at times. The focus though is unquestionably the Girl herself, as she shakes her bobbed fringe and pouts her way through the set. Even set against a cacophony of wolf whistles and some general leeriness, the tunes are noticeably worth salivating over.

Then we have These New Puritans...or do we? They fail to appear altogether, was the pressure just too much? No, someone's apparently suffered a head injury at the last minute, the musical equivalent of being injured in the warm-up. However with huge dollops of electro being served up from the speakers and gallons of lager flowing, nobody seems too fussed. The massive delay before Calvin's arrival passes in what seems like moments, and when he does emerge, it is to a welcome that transcends his position as an artist with a solitary hit to his name.

Like an old soak embracing his new besht (hic) mate five minutes after being introduced, the crowd adore the Dumfries disco maestro from the off. Most of the crowd may well have been enticed here on the strength of one tune, but each slice of electro retrospectiveness has everyone partying like its 1985. Calvin feeds off of the energy, stalking the stage with an Ian Brown-like monkey strut, then bobbing up and down at his keyboard like a meerkat on speed. Playing with a band, rather than behind a mixing desk, gives the sound a greater depth, and allows him to perform with such animation.

The reaction that greets 'Acceptable in the 80s' is akin to Calvin-mania, bodies gyrating and swaying to every beep, every bleep, every falsetto leap. It is the highlight, though not by the clear distance you may expect. The faux-posturing of 'The Girls', his next single, can only sustain the buzz, while 'Rock n Roll Attitude' could easily be an synth-disco classic lifted from the late 70s. It all goes some way to explaining how, in a matter of what seems like weeks, this young Caledonian electro-merchant has become one of the hottest names in music right now, even so far as to be collaborating with Kylie on her next record.

Leaving the stage to rapturous applause and a few pints spilt in drunken approval, it is clear that Calvin has, for a large proportion of the 800 assembled anyway, justified the hype. The Kylie connection will no doubt keep the tabloids engrossed for a few seconds, but his electronic nostalgia-fest will keep music fans interested for considerably longer. At this rate, it's only a matter of time before he's painted with the 'new rave' brush and his crowds start waving glowsticks at him, but that wasn't acceptable in any decade.

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Marcus