THE FELINE DREAM + MARCEL + RIVIERA
London Kentish Town "The Fan Club" at the Verge
6th April 2002


Tonight is yet another instalment of the monthly dose of synth pop and punk rock that is the Fan Club, and first up are the seemingly ever-present Riviera.
You can see why they're treated as the house band, as their shamelessly retro 80s synth pop fits perfectly. This is the second time I've seen them, and they are in better form than their Notting Hill Arts Club performance a couple of weeks earlier. I like them better when they just have the synths and the emotionless female vocals, so thankfully the chunky guitar parts are much lower in the mix tonight.
They do have two or three really strong songs (and one absolute europop stinker) and they've built up a following around London already. Unfortunately some of their fans tend to dress like extras from Bergerac and Howard's Way, but I guess they'll grow out of it. As for Riviera the band, their studied retro pose certainly works and new keyboard player Etienne Le Beau (well, he is French so there's an outside chance that might be his real name!) has fitted in well.
Marcel, in contrast to almost everything else going on tonight, are one of the worst bands I've seen in a long time. The singer comes on wearing a straw boater and the band sound like Shed Seven. The crowd ignore them for most of the set and quite a few people leave. In fact I'm only mentioning them in this review because there is an outside chance that some of the people who legged it may have thought they were the Feline Dream. That would be a disaster.
As it happens, the Feline Dream think they're having a disaster when they launch into 'At a Standstill' as some of their many leads have become unplugged during the other changearounds. It's not a big deal really, as most of the crowd just think that it has a really long intro (and a pretty good intro at that!). Nick uses the delay to wind up the ladytronners in the crowd, saying "hey playgirl, oh look it's a synth duo, are they going to do songs about going out in Camden?" Make no mistake, the Feline Dream make a lot of the other analogue synth acts look like silly fashion music.
'Standstill' is a odd one to open with though, as it's more downbeat than a lot of their material, though David's singing is really impressive. 'Industrial Estates' is next and gets the audience dancing, and 'Lindsay Carcass's warped RnB thing follows. Next up is a new song (to me anyway) which I think is called 'Far Behind' and is probably the best pop tune I've heard them play - make it the next single guys!
The obligatory cover version is chosen from a mystery envelope, and just like the Belfast show it's an energetic version of Eno's 'Baby's on Fire'. 'People Without Pets' is next, and it strikes me as odd (but refreshing) to see people actually playing real keyboards. They're on a bit of a roll now, and they leave on a high with their punkiest tunes - 'Crap Layabout' and 'The Doll Squad'. At just under half an hour this was a perfect chance to show-off their best material, and although we can quibble over which songs they dropped, don't forget that this was their first show in London and they won over a lot of the audience. The well deserved encore is 'Florian and Magilie' which mutates into improvised versions of 'Trans Europe Express' and fantastically, Donna Summer/ Giorgo Moroder's 'I Feel Love'. Now that's what you call ending things in style.

THE FELINE DREAM + CLONE QUARTET
"Kill a Spyde" at Belfast Empire Music Hall 23rd December 2001
After my first painful encounter with Clone Quartet in October I was actually looking forward to this support slot. Let's face it, they have put out a good demo tape which in turn yielded the best track on the Belfest CD ('PSS-80') so they can't be a complete disaster. Unfortunately I don't think that this gig was any improvement on the first time I saw them. They still suffer from a dreadful overall sound which makes their half hour set a very hard listen. Their other problem is that, with the exception of the aforementioned 'PSS-80' (which is great of course) and the two other tracks on the demo (which are OK), their songs simply aren't up to scratch. Ultimately there's little here to connect with or be impressed by, and although this review may seem harsh I'm merely echoing the opinions of a lot of people at this gig.
Well, David from the Feline Dream told me that they were going to play "for ages" and he was bloody right! I think they managed around 90 minutes, which tended to stretch audience stamina a bit. Having said that I was hugely impressed with the whole thing, they put on a far better show than I was expecting. They'd even done some work on the visual side of things - their huge synth rig was connected together with fluorescent XLR cables, the lights were good too. Both Feline's were wearing headset microphones, which not only kept their hands free to operate their many boards of keyness, but also let us hear all the ad-libs and between song waffle.
More impressive than that however, is the realisation that they have some really good songs. In fact they have quite a lot of really good songs! I'm a bit rusty with the titles, but I'm sure 'Little Pitbull' was one of many good new ones they played. (Is it the one with the 'kill a spide' refrain? I'm not sure.) Ditto 'The Doll Squad' and the very excellent 'Crap Layabout', two tunes that hint at more punkier influences than people may have expected. I wish the Fall could manage something as good as 'Crap Layabout' these days, as its repetitive riffing and sneering chorus are the sort of things MES and co used to do so well. Whilst we're still dwelling on the new stuff I have to mention the "world premiere" of 'My Name is Lindsay Carcass', a song dedicated to "Destiny's Child's dead hair" which, unless I was hearing things has a definite RnB influence in the bass synth riff!
This year's cover version was Eno's 'Baby's on Fire' which they do a fine job on. What else? Well, there was the lovely melodic stuff like 'Beachcomber' and 'Twilight', although I did think that the audience was starting to wane during the latter, and the tunes that people really wanted to hear - 'Industrial Estates' (which was my highlight of the night probably) and 'People Without Pets'.
People tend to think that bands consisting of two guys and a load of analogue synths has to be a poor live prospect, but the Feline Dream are completely entertaining. This had very little to do with lame 80s synth duos (or Ladytron for that matter!) and a lot more in common with punk, the first four Eno albums and the Fall. I'd go and see them again in a flash.

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