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The Chalets/ The Subways/ The Things
The Village, Dublin
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Article
written by Johnnie C
Apr 3, 2005.
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Welcome to “The” Village and tonight’s celebration of the ubiquitous Definite Article Band. First up are The Things, five Dublin misfits who take several leaves from the dusty tomes of The Cramps, The Meteors, The Damned and pretty much anyone else with dripping letters in their name. Derivative as their manners and physique may be, they are a spectacularly good and surprisingly fresh band to see live. The guitar and drums are suitably raucous and the swirling, horror-film keyboards and throbbing bass are all in place, but a demure and vaguely spooky frontman would simply kill the effect; fortunately, few frontmen are more unsettlingly psychotic and downright terrifying than Neilo. Energetic and furious, he throws himself maniacally around the stage, leering and scowling at a petrified audience who understandably cower back into the shadows. No amount of monster-mash graveyard gyrations or belly button-flaunting will entice them to come forward and the aggrieved rockstar-in-waiting finally warns them,“See later when The Subways and The Chalets come on, and yiz all move down the front – I’m gonna come out and piss on yiz.” Top class entertainment.
Need any more be said about the rise and rise of the The Subways? With their freshly-minted, hit single status, the crowd do indeed gravitate to the front with palpable excitement. What the band deliver is nothing short of magical. Too much modern rock’n’roll is either lazy and sluggish or labour-intensive and hackneyed; The Subways are neither, they were simply born with a gift. Their set is snappy, classy and thrilling and Billy’s half-apology that they’d only arrived an hour before coming onstage only serves to prove a point; even half-soundchecked, they still put most other bands of this ilk to the sword. Indeed, such is their shimmering star-quality that when a sweaty, post-gig Billy flops on to the sofa beside me on the balcony, I become tongue-tied and star-struck. This may be premature, but next time I get a chance to chat to him, I’ll no doubt have half a dozen security to get through first.
The Chalets, meanwhile, are living out a bedroom popsters wet dream; all Pee-Pee and Pony are short of is hairbrush-shaped microphones. However, their self-sewn costumes, handbag dancing and “it’s my party” giddiness aren’t mere gimmicks; they’re only a part of an extraordinary pop phenomenon. I say extraordinary, because they’re from modern Dublin, a city that enjoys a party like practically no other in Europe but finds it virtually impossible to get this across in song. Mind you, at the recent Prizes for the Advancement of Tedium in Irish Music (also known as the Meteor Awards) The Chalets somehow won Best Newcomer; is old-fashioned pop entertainment making a mainstream comeback in Ireland? If so, it’s in safe hands. From start to finish they are mesmerising tonight; a wonderful fusion of girl-group harmonies, New Wave vitality and classic 80s synth-pop, they have a set laden with hits. Sexy Mistake and Theme From Chalets alone would have you following this band to hell and back. Everybody’s smiling afterwards, it’s all been such good, clean (if saucy) party fun and not a Tracy Chapman cover version in sight; if Dublin’s sundry singer-songwriters are its musical gruel, The Chalets are its jelly and ice cream. God forbid they ever grow up.
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