THE DANDYS "I WANNA BE LIKE YOU"

Puressence + The Dandys + Straw London LA2


Dandys set listing: We are the Lowlife, Its easy, Dirty Weekend, English Country Garden, Tomorrow people, Nightclubbing, You make me want to scream.

Before this gig, London gigs were some sort of crazed fantasy cos I swore to myself that I would go to a load of them after I moved to Cheltenham. Well this was the first, my first time, so there’s all that, erm... as well as the fact that the Dandys de York were there.

People were everywhere outside but there was no queue. However, the beer was £2.50 a can which slowed down the will to drink somewhat. The first thing to do inside was to find someone wearing a bright pink top. But not having found them, Straw were there to watch. I can’t remember much about them so onward to the Dandys then.

I just wanted them to come on quick. I’d only seen them once before at the Gloucester Guildhall Shed 7 warm-up gig. Jen’s camera was aching at the lens to be snapped at them from the balcony where we were. It is also worth pointing out that contact lens wearers, such as myself and Jen, look very scary under those masses of UV lights. So, lenses aglow, we watched Andy entering the stage and crashing into We are the lowlife. Of course, not having being able to afford the album previously, I didn’t know this one. But I just had to go down and join the crowd.

No-one else was dancing at all, and that went on all through the gig, except for one person at the back, who eventually turned out to be Odette, with her mate, Claire, with the pink top. So on through Dirty Weekend, I finally got into the middle centre of the crowd for English Country Garden and got in good stead seeing as everyone took a pace away from me to let me dance about in mad awe, while Jen probably looked down from her camera lens at this loon. I suppose it was too much to ask for Oh Yuko. Nightclubbing (the ex-Karaoke) was superb and thudded away to some superior climatic ending, and the funky dancing which had taken place for this before was absolutely right, one track which I can’t wait to see in the shops. That was going to take some beating until the finale came straight after in the form of You make me want to scream. That just speaks for itself, and the extravagant darkness of that song is always going to be something that will never be replicated.

Puressence didn’t equal the performance of The Dandys, although it was Near Distance and I Suppose, the opening two were the only tracks I really wanted to hear. So I went up and drank the expensive beer with Jen and Odette. Well, first London (support) gig, can’t be bettered.


Written by ROB FIELDS

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