Little Man Tate

The Social, Nottingham on Sat 6th May 2006

Sheffield bred Little Man Tate are looking smug. Greeted by chants and cheers to put a football crowd to shame, when front-man Jon Windle ecstatically beams, ‘Well HELLO Nottingham!’ he thinks he’s on stage at the massive arena down the road. He’s not. This is a tiny back-end venue where bands still finding their feet usually struggle for attention. So why’s he so damn full of himself?

With the crowd’s roar sounding like an impression of The Great Fire Of London, things do seem a little more urgent than your standard small gig affair. In the make or break seconds between them arriving on stage and strumming out the first notes, the crowd surge forward with arms in the air, like sheep in a crush trying to flee an abattoir cargo van. As they kick off with ‘Man, I Hate Your Band’ - a song which, after all this fuss, doesn’t sound anything like ‘Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor’ – you could be fooled for thinking you’re about to witness something really quite special.

They follow with the chart friendly ‘Court Report’, which keeps people bouncing on their feet, but from hereon things slump further and further, as each song re-hashes the last, making for an utterly uninspiring performance. They’re the musical equivalent of a child playing with their food – Mum’s cooked them up a healthy balanced meal, they’ve just taken any goodness and mushed it up into the shape of a poo.

The sad thing here tonight is that it’s not only the crowd who pogo, sycophantically believing they’re in on the next big thing, the band too have been seduced by the hype. So whilst everyone’s busy patting themselves on the back for being on the cutting edge of popular culture, everyone seems to have overlooked that Little Man Tate are entirely unoriginal and really not very good.

They lack the eccentricity of The Young Knives and the wit of Maximo Park. When they’re angular they’re overshadowed by The Rakes, when they go rockabilly it’s like a bad Arctic Monkeys Tribute Band. They even make The Ordinary Boys seem credible. They chug down the middle of the road with smiles on their faces, making it easy for the Radio 1 masses to sing their tune. But weighing things up against the surge of real British talent that’s currently on offer, Little Man Tate’s role seems so contrived that they might as well give up now, so that crowds like tonight’s can find time to obsess over something a little more substantial.

article by: Alex Hoban

published: 10/05/2006 06:17



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