October 5, 1998

London Highbury Garage

The myriad reference points see Dylan (Bob), Friedman (Dean), Felt (themselves) and Buckley (either) fail to disguise Hayes' feverish nerves...

It's time to start worrying when soccer managers begin to talk more sense than anyone else. Last week, local thinker Arsene Wenger sighed that, "Nobody has any patience any more," and, while referring to matters strictly spherical, he would surely be able to countenance the dramatic dilemma inherent in Plush.

For it was in 1994 when Chicago-born Plush, aka Liam Hayes, released a quite sublime single called 'Three-Quarters Blind Eyes'. Five years and several tales of placid madness down the line, he has decided to promote said single - along with recent debut album 'More You Becomes You', itself recorded three years back - with a solitary UK live appearance. Surely, here is a man after Arsene's palpitating little heart.

There may not be a kind of Plush all over the world, then, but a small corner of north London still remains on tenterhooks. Hayes has long since proven his ability to master the majestic orchestral curve, the despondent piano chord and the shiveringly delicate vocal. Now it is his hair's chance to shine. And shine it does: bubbly of texture and bold of neo-Afro dynamic, the Plush follicles really are several sights to behold. Part Leo Sayer, part miserablist soothsayer, the role of Plush is therefore complete, even though the myriad reference points - see Dylan (Bob), Friedman (Dean), Felt (themselves) and Buckley (either) - fail to disguise Hayes' feverish nerves.

Flanked by a drummer and a keyboardist, and later joined by a woman who plays a percussive contraption which can only be compared to a melting set of golf clubs, Hayes twitches away beneath the spotlight, grabbing his guitar, putting it down, peering at his keyboard, fidgeting with his microphone and then grabbing his guitar again. In the middle of all this hyperactivity, he manages to play some songs which sometimes sound as though they were written by someone who has just accidentally shot his girlfriend, and otherwise just mope around looking perplexed, as befits a catalogue which incorporates a track entitled 'Soaring And Boring'. The bottom line on a night of casual, if not quite all-conquering success, is that the sound of Plush wouldn't be out of place at a Ben Folds Five slumber party. True, it would be playing backwards, it would make several people tremendously unhappy and all the geeky students would gawp at Liam's "Like, weeeiiirrrd pyjamas, man!", but, nevertheless, Plush knows how to write a cracking crack-up of a pop tune. Just don't push him into writing another one...

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