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Electric Six were preceded by acoustic duo Jackdaw4 who, despite having a good, friendly pop-rock vibe not dissimilar to Tenacious D, failed to capture the still fairly low crowd’s attention. This was especially the case when proclaiming several times that they were about to play “the best song ever written”, before playing a pretty average song that no one seemed to recognise; however, they somewhat redeemed themselves at the end of their set with a fun version of ‘Take On Me’.
Next on stage were Eureka Machines, an upbeat pop-punk band with a good energy that was, at least initially, ignored by the crowd, before they got mad and told them to be less “apathetic”.
Half an hour later, however, there was no apathy to be seen, as Electric Six took the room by storm. Kicking off the set with the memorable ‘After Hours’, new album Zodiac’s opening song, it only got better from there. Playing a variety of new and old material, this tour coincides with Zodiac’s release, but you couldn’t forget the songs that made us love the band. The set never slowed down, including particularly catchy songs such as ‘Naked Pictures (Of Your Mother)’, ‘Down at McDonnelzzz’ and ‘American Cheese’.
Obvious and expected highlights were ‘Danger! High Voltage’, the first song to really get the crowd moving, and ‘Gay Bar’, with its insistent riff played by our loveably deadpan guitarist, which was cleverly halted in the middle creating suspense before finishing it off and leading into the much more obscure ‘Gay Bar, Pt. 2’. There was also some unplanned comedy between these two songs as a crowd surfer reached the stage and Dick Valentine, the lead singer, left him stammering at the microphone before the drummer proclaimed that he’d learnt his lesson and should go away.
The encores of ‘Dance Epidemic’ and ‘Dance Commander’ prompted the biggest and most energetic mosh pit, as the titles demand they should, and deservedly.
With performances as strong as this and the material to back it up, it really is surprising that Electric Six aren’t playing bigger venues than this, especially seven albums down the road. Dick Valentine joked about having just signed a contract for the next 20 years - while this may be a bit extreme, they’re certainly welcome to stick around as long as they stay on this top form.
'it really is surprising that Electric Six aren’t playing bigger venues than this'
...really though?
it really is, though! they've been around for ages, they're boss, and it's the duchess, come on. most unfair if you ask me.
Caitlin I don't mean to be a prick but, surely the judge of whether a band is worthy of playing bigger venues is down to whether they are in fact a good band creating new, exciting and popular music? Do you really think that sheer persistence to hang on to the two single success they achieved in 2003 warrants bigger venue performances!? Granted they are fun, but ultimately..come on, aren't they just a bit shit!!?
I really like them, honestly! I think they're fairly underappreciated, their stuff post-High Voltage/Gay Bar is much better and shows real experimentation and advancement. there is more to success than quality of music, after all, just because a band isn't popular doesn't mean they're bad - nor are popular artists necessarily much good! in Electric Six's case their big hits back in '03 were only really popular because they were flashy, funny and weird, but they HAVE put out some legit good music since then that's been skimmed over because they're pigeonholed as the band that did those briefly successful novelty songs. the brass ring is often tough to grasp!
Don't get me wrong, I totally agree that popularity does not guarantee a certification that a band are making good music, however after a band has broken through and have the attention of the public and then fail to hold that interest it usually points to drop in quality.
I have actually listened to the more recent albums and to be honest I can totally understand why they have fallen into obscurity. Music is obviously a totally subjective art and I am glad you are still enjoying their music, but I'm sorry you might be waiting a while before they are on the arena tour!
'there is more to success than quality of music'? It's usually a good start to make good quality music though right?
fair enough, and I meant by that that success can come from a lot of other factors unrelated to actual musical quality! it was perhaps an unwieldy way of phrasing it.
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