The Long Blondes

Sunday never did quite sell itself as THE day to go out gigging, what with the other six making stronger cases for your support. Even now, on the odd day when people do make the effort to get out of the house when they should be getting an early night in advance of Monday morning, rocking out on the Sabbath still feels vaguely wrong – like when grown-ups suck their thumbs or when men sit down to pee.

To add to the vague confusion ruminating around The Social’s end-of-week faithfuls, at eight-thirty, an hour after doors should have opened, there’s still no sign of the band having turned up. No-one seems to know what’s going on and, as the small downstairs bar packs out further and further with irritated people expecting to see The Long Blondes, you can’t help wondering if this is an omen and that really you should have stayed in this evening to watch re-runs of Last Of The Summer Wine.

After some time the bands materialise and things are eventually up and running, but by 9.45pm, when support act Disco Drive take the stage, people seem frustrated and bored. It’s a shame, as the Italian three-piece deliver some wonderful percussive arrangements that, if it weren’t late on a Sunday, would have served as the perfect dance-floor precursor to a night-out.

Sadly though, it is late on a Sunday night and their over-long set is treated to a muted reception. People are more interested in the times on their watches, wondering whether it’ll all be over before the last bus out of town.

It’s minutes before eleven when The Long Blondes finally take the stage, but the evening’s stops and starts prove no problem for sultry lead singer Kate Jackson, who pulls back on the microphone to kick the show off, as if it were a detonation lever about to set off dynamite. The Sheffield five-piece have a varied set, at times taking their cues from the kind of grey, lumbering riffs that made the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club so damn soporific, at others spinning off some Blondie-esque pop rock that succeeds to momentarily elevate the Sunday lull that keeps the crowd from fully enjoying themselves.

Jackson cuts a slender figure on stage, creating an air of class about the band, that is further enhanced by her compelling voice that is at once darkly brooding and flirtatiously sexy. She is the single-handed driving force behind them and reason that they’ve managed to stand out from the crowd in the first place. Songs like ‘Lust In Movies’ and ‘Giddy Stratospheres’ would hover around generic indie mumblings if it were not for her seductive vocal hooks – bar some occasionally ecstatic drum beats, they’re the only point of reference for a listener to differentiate one part of a song from the next.

Due to the band’s late arrival a proper sound check is neglected, leading to lengthy gaps between songs whilst levels are checked and changed, leaving huge atmospheric slumps for the audience who, by this point, are done talking to their friends about what they’ve been up to over the weekend. Yet through the endless problems, moments of genuine musical affluence shine through, and by set-closer and excellent current single, ‘Separated By Motorways’, people are at least able to appreciate the band’s potential if they were in kinder surroundings.

FUTURE GIGS

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