9th September. We go to see this gig at Madame JoJo’s. The place seems a bit self-important these days, but the comings and goings in Soho are always a sight. The opening band, Still Corners, do an enjoyable revisiting of the Cocteau Twins (they’re trendy again?). A mediocre G&T is 5 pounds, outrageous but still cheaper than in nasty Bar25. Then the headliners come on stage, a girls’ band. I’m a bit put off by how excessively they are done up in this obsessive-compulsive North-American way, where after 3 laborious hours in front of the mirror the aspirants come out looking fully plastinated and put such amounts of effort into looking effortlessly cool that it makes even the most affable observer squirm.
Anyway, these girls look like America’s next top model doing “retro rock” and they attract a coordinated crowd. They also sound like America’s next top model, come to think of it. Re-heated vintage R&B, sterilized into the aseptic chick-rock you get as a free CD with Glamour magazine. The Go-Go’s are probably this band’s ideal, but they sound more like a pompous Bangles cover-band. And then comes the posturing... flicks of the trendy haircut so that the locks fall on your face in that cool way; matching lascivious flicks of the hips that swing your guitar in that equally cool way. The singer keeps repeating in her insufferable sexy drawl: ‘’ So yeah, our new album will be out soon ... and, yeah, you guys should buy it!” A powerful, hypnotising, subliminal advertising technique she’s deploying, this one. The Pill doesn’t bother getting up from her seat, placed in a corner from where she can’t see them, and even eager me gives up before the last song. Remembering this band will give me hope in the dark moments when Primrose tells me we’re too saccharine-pop. They are called The Likes and yeah, you guys should buy their album.
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