February 27, 2004

My Morning Jacket/Junior Senior/IMA Robot/Keane : London Astoria

There’s a battle going on here this evening...

There’s a battle going on here this evening, a battle between brain and body, intellect and instinct, between the genital and the cerebral. My Morning Jacket’s solid oak dining table vs Junior Senior’s gaudy plastic sex toy. But first of all, Keane. Full marks for the ruthlessly simple use of just voice, piano and drums, but, fuck me, it’s a little samey six songs in. "This is a new one!" beams singer Tom. Really? How can you tell? IMA Robot are a whole other hatstand of cock-handed giraffes. Clearly mental, they rubber-limb their way around the stage bashing out a racket like a pre-teen Cramps slack-bowelled on tartrazine. ‘Scream’ still rules, however.

All night, pockets of the crowd had been howling for Junior Senior, and by the time the Laurel and Hardy of Scando-pervery ran on stage, the Astoria was a well-lubed, willing participant in their foul craft. Like a B52's you don’t want to stab in the groin on contact, they massage themselves to fruition on Motown, girl-groups, funk, disco, pop and soul, and, for reasons I’ll never understand, ‘Move Your Feet’ is still amazingly good. ‘Good Girl Bad Boy’ even provokes wanton neck-licking on the upper-tier.

My Morning Jacket are the least sexy looking band evah. They may resemble meth’d-up teenage Megadeth fans, but they sound[I] like heaven on fucking earth. ‘Mahgeeta’ and ‘The Way That He Sings’ are enormous flowering bursts of noise, like Mogwai high on ELO’s space-glue, while ‘Lowdown’ [I]destroys all competition with a flick of its hilariously girly hair. We have a winner!

Rob Fitzpatrick