The Long Blondes / xx teens / The Jacks

You know those emotion faces that people are so obsessed with using nowadays, the ones that express the sentimental underlay of their message? Don't you think that they are a bit pointless? After all, all they serve to do is reinforce what the words should already say. If you have to fall back on overplayed emotions to cover for an inability to articulate something properly then you probably need to focus more on what you say than on how you say it. The Long Blondes need to. As they promote their new album 'Couples', I'm surprised to see that they don't include an explanatory picture of two people holding hands on the album cover.

Let me explain. In 2006, lead singer Kate Jackson was voted number 7 on the NME's 'Cool List'. Well done her, that's cooler than me. But it does emphasise another point. It is the image that leads the music, something that Kate by no means discourages. When questioned on her inclusion in that very list, she justified it by saying it was 'because they didn't have enough girls'. It was so overrun with boring boys, they needed someone to bring a touch of glamour. Oh, ok then Kate. Not to do with the quality of music then? I think she's covering something up...

Maybe they know their music is average. Because it is. If you take away the frontwoman and her number 7 cool ranking, there is very little else there. Just a poppy, quasi-feminist rip-off of half the 1970's punk genre that has become subdued by too much attention to image and too little attention to sound. Consequently, their musical inarticulacy is pervaded by little smiley faces of 'coolness' from Kate who treats the sparse crowd to a winning repertoire of coquettish stage moves that aim to reinforce the energy of the songs.

The performance is fun and indeed very energetic, following on from startlingly mediocre support from The Jacks and xx teens, as the set opens with 'Round the Hairpin', 'Once and Never Again' and new single 'Century', all accompanied by feverish twirls and hip thrusts. But I was struck by an impression that these actions were entirely necessary in the function of the songs. They could not convey the energy without an accompanying action to demonstrate the message. The music simply is not good enough alone.

And another thing you will notice is that in writing about The Long Blondes, I have only mentioned Kate. There are, in fact, four other member of the band. But they are mysteriously obsolete. The Long Blondes is Kate Jackson. She makes them tick. She is the little emotion face that smiles at you in front of the musical message the others try to convey, and without her they convey very little. If you really think about it, that cannot be good. Everyone should contribute, but they don't.

There is a lot of new material on show that reveals a more mature level of song-writing, one that has moved away from the everyday triviality of songs like 'Giddy Stratospheres', which appears just before the encore, to more serious subject matter that is more concerned with the psychologically of the human mind. Kate does her best to convey a sense of meaning to the lyrics, but you get the feeling that they are getting beyond themselves.

Drummer Mark Turvey tries to interrupt our focus on Kate by announcing that a recent release reached number 45 in the charts. "We're in the top 50" he remarks, "and no-one can take that away from us." His voice is laced with irony, but it is not beyond the bounds of conceivability that this is an overachievement for the band. They have certainly done well to realise the success of the last album, but this will surely change. The crowd is threadbare and full of middle-aged people. The radical, youthful market has deserted them, heading off in search of new sounds, new images. It's a sad reality check for the Sheffield quintet.

This being said, the gig was enjoyable. Energetic and good-humoured, it provided a nice change from many bands currently touring. But the unhappy fact is that the band are overachieving. Their music is not strong enough to convey its ambition and the success cannot last. Which makes me sad.

FUTURE GIGS

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