Live

Rip It Up, Issue 115, 1 February 1987, Page 28

Live

Chills, Look Blue Go Purple, Straitjacket Fits Galaxy, February 5 Straitjacket Fits opened, loud and stylish. A well-structured band distinguished by Shayne Carter’s confident, vivacious vocals, with two guitars (some electrified acoustic) giving scope for thrash and mock heroics, balanced against the rhythm and nicely res-

trained drumming. Moments of 60s psychedelia, the overall impact is exuberant. Must see again. Look Blue Go Purple were popular with the audience (did they play the same song 10 times?) achieving silvery, skirling effects with flute, guitars and mellifluous contralto voices, pegged down by a hardworking bassplayer and oddly discrepant with their dynamic, fast-paced drummer — who emerged from the heinous mixing as the leader of the band.

Martin Phillipps’ new Chills are very slick, very impressive.

Fairyland lighting, tinkling intro, Phillipps twinkling in lurex and turned up toes spooking the crowd into ‘Great Escape’ and sweeping them away with ‘Doledrums.’ Then ‘Dan Destiny and the Silver Dawn,’ a wonderful song with hesitant blues guitar played with unusual chord changes. A strong start, firing culminative enthusiasm for the unbelievably corny ‘Matthew and Son,’ upbeat ‘Pink Frost,’ compelling ‘This is the Way’ and Birdsnest Warwick go-going on stage to ‘Frozen Fountains’ to finish.

Excellent showmanship, great entertainment, but the new Chills have a chilly, calculated aspect, with only one animating spirit. The mainforce of Phillipps’ fey genius reduces the rest of the band to the technical components of mass hypnosis by a master. Jewel Sanyo Orchestral Maneouvres in the Dark Logan Campbell Centre, December 15 Bringing atmosphere and energy into what is the world’s largest

milking shed is not easy. OMD did both, and ought to be very pleased. Andy McCluskey was very pleased with himself from the moment he took the stage for ‘Southern,’ chatting away to the audience and dancing like a gibbon; at times he was a little embarrassing, at others he was right on target. The band performed like one big happy family. New songs came out with punch and the old were brightened up with new horn parts or the odd change of harmony, ‘Julia’s Song’ being a good example. The biggest cheers were for ‘Electricity’ (natch) and ‘Joan of Arc,’ while the wonderful ‘Tesla Girls’ didn’t do too poorly either. I expected a pretty sedate affair but was surprised; the audience were extremely devoted, hanging on every word. Is this a cult following? Who knows; OMD may yet pull a New Order on us and make the mainstream in a big way. As long as Paul Humphreys confines his odd vocal performance to disc (his singing was painfully weak), they’ll be safe. Not bad going for a bunch of one-finger wonders from Manchester. And give Malcolm Holmes (drums) and the horn section a cigar, someone — they damn near blew the roof off. Now that would be doing us all a favour...

Chad Taylor