by Michael Blunt
Riding High
The future must have looked a lot more promising for tonight’s headliners in September 2008. Single ‘In the City’ was riding high at number five in the UK charts and debut album ‘& Then Boom’ was about to be dropped into stores across the country. And then the backlash started and Iglu & Hartly fled.
Their mix of eighties new wave, Eminem style rap and bubblegum metal riffs might have looked good on paper in the same way that a donkey/dodo/puppy hybrid might. It is only when you see the finished product you realise that actually it was a huge mistake, and is actually kind of ugly looking. Still, somebody has to feel sorry for it, right? So this return to British shores may be the band’s last attempt at escaping the rap-rock dungeon that currently keeps such company as fellow also-rans Steriogram and OPM.
First up, however, is almost local boy Ed Sheeran who in a short but sweet set manages to switch through more genres than songs. Taking in soulful trip-hop, Jamie T style bad boy raps, indie pop melodies and even a bit of marijuana inspired reggae, Sheeran is a cool, confident one-man band. Crowd participation and a mad rush afterwards to buy his EP suggests he has every reason to be as self-assured as he seems to be.
New Politics are a Danish-come-American pop-punk band with the emphasis on the punk, and they’re as crazy as only Scandinavians know how. The glaring absence of a bass within the trio doesn’t seem to matter as the shouty rap vocals of David Boyd go hand in hand with Søren H’s more melodic tone. Bouncing all over the Arts Centre stage there is something refreshingly early Beastie Boys about it all and some utterly impressive breakdancing from Boyd during the penultimate song wins over those still teetering on the edge. The garage-y ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’ may seem a bit obvious at first, but quickly becomes an anthem in the making.
This all leaves Iglu & Hartly with a fair bit to live up to. As soon as they trot out and break into ‘Violent and Young’ it is clear that in their heads they are headlining stadiums. Maybe if this was, say, 1995 than maybe they could be. Unfortunately it is 2010 and the world has moved on. To be fair they do try, but in a way that suggests in their research they have discovered every rock cliché available and taken each one straight to heart.
There are some clear low moments. One is when a ‘lucky’ fan is invited onstage to be sang happy birthday to, which takes up an utterly pointless few minutes. And you know that annoying habit of girls sitting on their boyfriends shoulders during shows meaning that nobody behind can see? Well, Iglu & Hartly actually request that the audience do this. Wow.
Despite Jarvis Anderson and Sam Martin sharing vocal duties, it is the former who is the obvious centre of the band. Yet he comes across at best as Iggy Pop’s slightly embarrassing younger brother. Maybe it is all just one big joke building up to a massively disappointing punchline (exhibit A: The lyrics to encore ‘DayGlo’… “They call me day glo/On the day I glow”. Seriously?) but that might be too optimistic. There is a scene in ‘Dude, Where’s My Car’ that sums up the whole experience perfectly. It is the one where Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott are hanging by the pool, surrounded by sorority girls, miming to some dated rap tune. For anybody that loves that movie then Iglu & Hartly could probably be their favourite band. For anybody else it is more like digging up a time capsule to discover nothing but a corpse inside. If truth be told then they have a lot to learn from their support bands tonight.
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Lauren Razavi
Dan Bleksley
