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68 Special - Live at the Boardline, LONDON.
By Matt
I gotta admit I kinda like the name, it says something without me quite knowing what, you know what I mean, and after seeing them in action, I kinda like the band without quite knowing why. Let me digress.
My teenage sensibilities where weaned on a cocktail of indie, mum and dad's Sunday music and the odd chart effort which grabbed my misguided attention. All of which one quietly paves over to lay the foundations for whatever happens to be the it of the moment. In my case, this normally sad process of social coercion, was entirely justified. Deep down I knew there was something disturbingly wrong with the post roast selecta my tender psyche was subjected to. Along with the incessant throwbacks to live performances by Joan Bias, "where everyone sat down and it was all very civilised." Fortunately for the world I could only lay my hands on blanks and my friend gave me a Prince tape. Thus I emerged from the depths of pubity withonly a mild awareness of my parents fallibility and a Barbara Dickson Must Die T-shirt. Ten years down the line I've done hangovers, discovered my dick is a dual purpose attachment, etcetcetctetc. The world according to my parents makes a bit more sense when faced with a long stretch of life to grind, and not a clue how I'm going to do it.
Thus the spurned melodies that rocked my world as child start to sound good on "back in the day" mid morning radio shows, until a bunch of barbie dolls do a housed up cover of it. The desire to reminisce stretches across the years and once again fondles that security blanket. Which eventually brings me to my point, what you dug then you dig now, right down on that DNA level. The fundamentals of expression are varied and specific to the individual. Basically my adolescence was so laid out my trials and tribulations amounted to nothing more than a second rate version of Dawsons Creek, hence my penchant for the tragedy of love and loss.
The above mentioned theme is sketchy at best as it has been wanked on about by everyone from Michael Bolton to Blondie. I guess it parallels the nature of the beast itself, there's bad love and good love, the semantics of which are a grey area in them selves. The boy Jackson's perspective aside, I'm into bad love, and that's what 68 Special delivered.
To put it in perspective the band consist of Mel, Carly, Sally and Mike. One point that came up in the after show chat was they're desire to transcend the Girls with guitars stigma. In theory I agree, when your trying to do your own thing it's an arse when some idiot takes it upon themselves to categorise your shit just because they can only deal with a concept that's spoon feed to them. However when your in a band, the most visible exponents of which are three girls, one can't expect the audience to drop all it's baggage and just listen to the music as an abstract entity. Everyone is subject to stereotyping, it's how you play with it that counts. What they do well is projecting their characters on to the feel of the sound. From the off it seemed very natural and easy, strolling on with an endearing nochanlance, smiles and chatter, and no bridge of ose clenching attempts to get the audience hot to trot. The tunes kinda bled into each, without becoming monotonous. The harmonising weaves the guitars wove round each other, gave each cord more bite, hence a fuller sound and preventing it washing itself out. Mels voice is something quite special, it's good, she can sing and she can wail, and she does it with nuts. There are points when the voice and guitars shrug off the crude bass matter of music, meld together to form something of higher purpose, not often but enough to imagine some good shit in the futre. Which brings me back to the point about music and it's makers. Apart from the abvious notion concering the infusion of the individual with the music, the visual spectacle of it being performed by three girls and a boy added to the equation. The dulcet melancholy of the vocals, the growly bass, the guitars, all sang with a certain spice lent by the presence of it's makers, beyond the energy of the band. It sounds all abit art but think Debbie Harry singing "hanging on the telephone". Not to impugn the quality of the songs but just to say that they were an important part of it, and hence something it would be silly to try and white wash.
Back to the tunes. It is hard when your using a instrument that has been one of the prominent voices of the 20th century in terms of music, to do something that people won't automatically dismiss as this or that. 68 Special have a quality that makes them unique, partly as discussed above. On a more direct level their blend of instruments, and vocal harmony produce a subtly complex sound. Guitar riffs composed of more than just mindless strumming, contrasted with some hard breaks and some rude noises, give a well rounded feel. I think the greatest about 1000 words trying to define it and still haven't done it justice. So I'll stop arsing around and leave you with a few choice adjectives, sensual, broody, haunting, hard.
In conclusion I recommend them as something to see. The fact it was only their third gig, they've been together for about eight months all points to a promising future. Six months down the line, I reckon they're gonna be something to get us all greasy. Back To The Main Menu -- Main Review Index - - Page1
