Entering the stage one by one, the drummer followed by the
three vocalists - pinstripes (Alloysious), the guy who poses (Kayus), and
button-down (G)- took their places in front of the sold out smaller Institute
room. With the recent release of their excellent third LP, Cocoa Sugar, there
is another wave of buzz around this Scottish outfit that despite being slightly
mellower this time out, still refuse to be pigeonholed. They started up with a
slow builder before getting into it. A good selection of the new stuff was on
offer, with tracks like Toy coming across even better live. Same with Tremolo
and Wow, and seeing the already great In My View brought to life was special
indeed. Not sure what I was expecting in terms of instrumentation, there was a
large drum kit centred around one giant drum, played standing with oversized
felt-tipped sticks, and a bass drum side stage for Alloysious. Both these kits had
absolutely mangled cymbals that crashed and died out with very little sizzle,
adding to the low-fi effect. Besides that there was a bank of effects that G
would fiddle with his back to us but it was primarily prerecorded tracks. And
that was just fine as it was their vocals - singing, rapping, layered, yelping,
yelling - that made it. The crowd seemed to need a shot in the arm early on so
they dropped Get Up to get the crammed peeps grooving. Little later on was Old
Rock n Roll, while a special track from the EPs was I Heard. There was very
limited interaction between the members or with the audience besides one call
and response track opener. Then they stood in the dark for an extended period
before asking Birmingham what we wanted. Some wanted to party, others to dance,
others wanted Shame, and they all got just what they wanted as Young Fathers
closed with their ultimate ass-shaker. With that they exited one-by-one
stage-left while Kayus belted it out until he too departed. Despite an effort
by the fans to overcome the house music, and then the house lights they did not
return, choosing to leave it at what felt like a brief hour-long dose
of..whatever you call it.. I still can’t stick a title on it but it was damn
fun.
This gal sang over some mixed tracks and drums provided by her two male accomplices. Her voice wasn't bad but there was very little variation between the songs. Even within the songs themselves things seemed to get repetitive and this was on first listen. An impressive vocal display near the end gets some props but I likely won't be adding it to my playlists.
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