Electric Soft Parade

Tom White and Alex White are clever. Very clever. They are the founders of Electric Soft Parade and had already bagged Q’s Best New Band Award and a Mercury Nomination before entering their twenties. Their three albums expertly take music of the past and invert it with electronic loops, constant harmonies and deceptive time changes. They want to push themselves and challenge their audience. They know that in the world of music to stand still is to go backwards.

	"another example of the White brothers refusing to be labelled as 'yet another indie band'"

The Glasgow audience were to witness their most recent experiment. They would play their new album - ‘No Need to be Downhearted’ - in it’s entirety. In track order. In a constant flow with no gaps or dialogue between the songs. A stream of video would be projected over the band . It would be edited to be synchronised with the music (so that when people sang on the video it would be in time to the music played live by the band). It was another example of the White brothers refusing to be labelled as “yet another indie band” as Tom put it. It was a risk. Would it pay off?

Not really.

It is a good idea on paper and it is admirable to see a band want to try something new. However, it fails to make for a good gig for two reasons. Firstly, the people who knew the album well were always prepared for what was to come. The track order was a given. There was no surprise, no excitement and therefore a huge factor for a great gig had been removed.

Secondly, the video streaming did not work. Although Tom revealed towards the end of the set that it had taken 18 months to create the video, it felt like time wasted. This is because the effect of putting a video over a band meant that the audience were more likely to watch the video than connect with the band. It was no longer an interactive experience, just a visual one. Combine this with the lack of talk from the band between songs meant that there was nothing to prevent us from just watching.

It was a band mistake that drove these points home. After ‘Cold War’ the keyboard failed to open the song when it should have. The band had to request for the projection to stop and Tom exploded in order to vent his frustration. “For f*ck’s sake! We were supposed to be trying this new thing with the video and it’s cocked up. Thanks very much though for not being sure how to react between our wanky experimental bits of the album.” Although this may have been some tongue-in-cheek self-criticism it was still true. The audience were unsure how to react to this trial. For Tom to suddenly show his anger made him human and more appealing. The band were no longer a display, they were reacting back and it instantly made the gig feel so much better.

After the experiment was over the band relaxed, spoke to us far more often, played some rare but great music from their back catalogue and were joined on stage by support act Dear Britch for a camp yet glorious cover of ‘Moonraker’. The gig was now unpredictable. The gig was now more than visual. The gig was no longer a challenge but actually enjoyable.

Credit where credit’s due - the ESP were trying something new tonight which many bands would be far too scared to even think about. Although it didn’t work they should be applauded by their desire to push themselves and their music. But if it ain’t broke...

FUTURE GIGS

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