Electric Six - Fibbers, York. Wednesday 30th November 2011 – Live Review

Electric Six - Fibbers, York. Wednesday 30th November 2011 – Live Review
Supported by Swound!

And so it would be, almost a year to the day, I would be back in York to see, in my opinion, the world’s best band live in my home town. Of course, things have changed in that I no longer live in York and got a lift over with a friend to see them before returning back to my new abode in Bradford and that the band have returned to the club after a few years upstairs in the Duchess, a fact not overlooked by the band who made reference to it in their set. But, no matter what my residency status, it was going to be a good night seeing the band.

But it did start off weirdly.

Having landed in York, enjoying a mix-CD of E6 rarities, live tracks and remixes in the car to whet our appetites, we decided to grab a quick bite to eat as there was forty minutes until the doors opened. Settling for Pizza Hut, a quick check on Facebook found that the doors were due to open at 7:30, not 8pm as on the tickets, but by this point we’d already been accosted by the overtly smiley server and so we had to stay for the duration, which wasn’t, as it turned out, a problem as the support didn’t come on until around 8:45pm.

It would seem that, as my friend noted, Pizza Hut were trialling the new unhappy hour. Never has there been such a succession of gloomy, miserable, downright suicidal selection of festive Christmas songs assaulting the ears of the half-dozen people in the restaurant. It was the last day of November and, though not into the month when Christmas songs should start being played, I would have been happy with some bouncy festive tunes ala Slade, Shakin’ Stevens or Bo Selecta. Yes. Bo Selecta.

Instead what we got was a selection of songs guaranteed to knock the festive spirit out of you and would make eating a plate of sprouts in front of the Queen’s speech with a bottle of your gran’s “best” snowball liqueur appealing.

Though the pizza was tasty – but, alas expensive – we couldn’t wait to get out of the place, though our exit was delayed by the assistant thrusting a mock envelope into my hand advising if we bring it back to a meal at any Pizza Hut in early January unopened, we will win the prize that’s held within it. ‘Brilliant,’ I thought, I might just do that, but now we can go. But then he pointed us over to the till receipt where we could get a special pizza offer if we visited a website.

OK. That’s great. But he wasn’t finished. He advised us that the restaurant was in the running for the best one in York or something and pointed over to a poster. It was like being assaulted by the most ardent telemarketer who, when you’ve told them you’re not interested in buying insurance, will continue throwing products and services as you until you pick one.

With that we made our excuses and left. I made a half-hearted glance at the poster to at least show some interest at nominating them as the best restaurant. Though they probably are – the food was tasty, the serving quick and the service friendly (perhaps too friendly) – they certainly lose points for comatosing their customers with their gloomy Christmas records and delaying them from seeing their bands by thrusting pieces of paper into their eager mitts and asking them to visit more websites than a virus-laiden browser.

Having escaped the restaurant and full of pizza we crossed the road to Fibbers, which was, unsurprisingly, pretty much the same as it was when we had seen the Lancashire Hotpots two weeks earlier. There were about the same number of people in the venue with flat caps on as well, weirdly, but not us this time. Thankfully I didn’t have to go to the toilet to experience the woodchip cubicles, but I imagine they’re probably the same.

Grabbing a drink, observing someone wearing a Kaiser Chiefs t-shirt to the same gig I went to recently at Kirkstall Abbey, and spending twenty of the Queen’s best notes on a new t-shirt, badges and bottle opener, it was a short wait for the support act to come on, a group in the form of Nottigham’s ‘Swound!’, a four-piece band made entirely of brothers, not that you’d particularly tell from looking at them.

Their entry onto stage couldn’t be more different to how they would come across for the rest of the set. The lead singer walked up to the mic, cocked his head back and demonstrated a spit fountain of the drink he was gargling and the left guitarist jumped up at the ceiling in an angry display of youthful energy. The fact that the band turned out to be quite plummy with a lead singer that looked like a cross between the lead singer of Weezer and one of the Proclaimers gone solo, with stage banter that thrust swear words in left, right and centre that sounded as out of place as if your staid auntie came round to your grandmother’s for tea and said “please pass the shitting scones you motherfucker”, was a contrast.

That all said for an attempt at comedy, the band were actually very, very good, so much so I dashed back to the merchandise counter at the end of their set to pick up their album ‘Into the Sea’. I don’t think I’ve ever done that for a support band I’ve seen first time. And I once saw the Ting Tings supporting Reverend and the Makers.

Swound! opener ‘Your Kids Are Gonna Love It’ both demonstrated the quality of the Fibbers sound system, thanks to their re-furbishment, with lyrics and guitar all clearly audible, something is often surprisingly lacking in similar venues, as well as the sheer catchiness and appeal of the hit, with a chorus that was immediately memorable on first listen.

After that track the banter from the lead singer, aside from the seemingly forced swearing, was friendly and appealing, and second track ‘Big Trouble’ was as good as the first both in memorability and music ability, their sound being around pop-indie with hints of the Kaiser Chiefs and Green Day.

Third track ‘In My Head’ and fourth ‘Tokyo’ all buzzed by happily and I was really enjoying their support. The band’s crowd interaction in doing call-outs and singing along during the ending of one track really worked and, aside from the odd heckle, the crowd were happy to oblige the requests of the support band.

Fifth song ‘Mean People Suck’ and its lyrics emphasised the young age of the young band and was maybe a little less-well-written on first hearing, but we’ll see when I listen to the album, but it was no less musically accomplished with great harmonies, break-downs and solos.

Also, the support should be noted as the first one I’ve ever seen that have given out a chocolate biscuit as a prize to the crowd.

One more track brought their thirty-five minute set to its conclusion and overall I was very impressed by their on-stage antics, their pop / indie / geek-rock, and overall their catchy, memorable songs, that benefited from a clear sound system that allowed the crowd to appreciate the words to songs they’ve probably never heard before. There was still also enough time for the guitarist to randomly dash off stage and to the bar - I suppose when you have to have a drink, you have to have a drink – allowing the other guitarist and drummer to do a solo each, both very good.

Now it was a short wait until the main act. After what was possibly the weirdest opening CD track ever – sounding like a cross between Bjork and whale song (I can’t attest to the accuracy of that comparison, but it was weird) the band, minus Dick, came on for the one minute intro into their new album track ‘French Bacon’, which sounded just as good live as on the record. Dick was on soon for a powerful version of the song that got the crowd immediately into it.

His banter for the first few songs, as in previous tours, was limited with little more than announcing the chronological numbers of the trackd, but it allowed for them to rocket through several hits to get the crowd going, including ‘After Hours’ and ‘Down At McDonnelzzz’, both excellently played if a little slower than their album recordings thus losing a little of their impact, but the moshers were already out and the crowd happily filled in the gaps of the latter track with the expected ‘Go!’s.

‘Naked Pictures (Of Your Mother)’ was next up and was a welcome return, but it was the following track, the first to benefit from Dick’s funny, tongue-in-cheek chats, that was the first big pleaser for me. ‘Pink Flamingos’, a track I’d not heard live up to this point, lost a little in translation from the album version but was merely adapted, with the live version keeping the swagger of the country-and-western song but with more focus on the guitars. It was a joy to listen to.

This was followed by live favourite ‘The Future Is In The Future’, with its established ‘My Drummer’ middle-eight, where Dick talks about the band’s drummer before going off onto a random story, this time about demonic women rising up from the bowels of hell to be waiting for him in Fibbers’ back room, that lost none of its appeal being brought back out, and allowed the band’s musicianship to be shown off.

The crowd, naturally, kicked off again with the next song – famous single ‘Danger! High Voltage’ – complete with the added ‘Touch It’ lyrics at the end before it was followed up by one of my favourites, and a delight to hear, ‘Dance Pattern’, even if the crowd didn’t react quite as well to it in the shadow of one of their most famous hits. But it was well done and, though Dick seemed to struggle to keep up with the lyric pace at time, it was great to hear.

‘Hello! I See You’ from the new album was next and, again, didn’t get a massive cheer but it is a newer song, but as a fan of this track it was great to hear and it translated well from the album. Unfortunately I wasn’t as keen on their version of ‘Infected Girls’ which, though nice to be brought back from the archives, didn’t seem as good as the album version and the music wasn’t as appealing and, at times, unrecognisable compared to the recorded version.

But, after a funny ramble about the band being sent to Spain to research into flamenco dancers for the US Government we got the fantastic ‘Clusterfuck’, which got the crowd singing’, and “their best song” as he said ‘Jam It In The Hole’, a double-hit from ‘Zodiac’ that were great to hear.

Naturally the crowd went mad for ‘Gay Bar’ which followed which, to my delight, included a partial return for the guitar solo in the middle where the silence usually is, and it was paired up with ‘Gay Bar Part Two’, but it was ‘Gridlock!’ from the new album that really stood out surprisingly in the set, being up there with ‘French Bacon’ as stand-outs from the new album when done live. I like the track on the album but loved it live, the energy of the title really bouncing round the room.

The main set was brought to a close by my personal favourite ‘Dance Epidemic’ and ‘I Buy The Drugs’, both receiving good responses, before the band disappeared off stage. Sadly there were no calls for ‘We Want Dick’, instead just choruses of ‘encore’, but the band came back on nonetheless to give us ‘Rip It’, a track from the vaults that was, as always, great live, and their version of the Detroit Spinner’s classic ‘The Rubberband Man’ which was great from Dick’s side but which really showed up the lack of volume in the microphones of guitarists The Colonel and Johnny Na$hional, which had been far too quiet all night and especially noticeable on this with more prominent dual vocals, a fact that was a let-down in comparison to the venue’s great sound in the support. I have noticed this before, though, in other venues, that the backing mics for the band are never loud enough.

The gig came to its conclusion with a rowsing performance of ‘Dance Commander’, complete with flashing red light trails switched on in the venue ceiling - before the band vanished off stage for good this time and my friend and I could disappear to chat about the gig and head back to Bradford.

Overall, Electric Six were on top form again, the tracks all performed well, the crowd responsive and Dick’s vocals strong. It would be churlish of me to bemoan any song choices as, eight albums down the line it would be impossible to fit everything in you’d want to hear, but the inclusion of ‘Infected Girls’ over something like ‘Pulling the Plug On The Party’ or ‘Body Shot’ is questionable, but from looking at daily set-lists they do change some of these tracks so it’s just the luck of the draw. We did get ‘Dance Pattern’ and ‘Dance Epidemic’ after all. One fact, though, is that there seems to be very little love for ‘KILL’, with no tracks from this album appearing.

In fact the main problems with the night – minor ones at that – didn’t come from the band but from the heat in the venue and the annoying twat – I don’t use the word lightly – that decided to bring a plastic horn into the venue and decided to blow it at every opportunity. I don’t think I was the only one wanting to shove it up somewhere so far that even some rock and roll wouldn’t be able to evacuate it from him. Sorry. Bad song reference there.

It was another fantastic set from the band, aided by a great support band, and there was much to enjoy from the choice of tracks, their delivery and Dick’s on-stage banter.

Here’s looking forward to his acoustic tour in May and hopefully another full tour come next November.