I saw Chain & the Gang last night, and they were surprisingly good. On record, they aren't really anything particularly exciting, with most of their songs sounding fairly similar (this one, their best by far, is an exception). Indeed, I only really went to the gig because Grass Widow, one of my favourites of the current trend for all-female fuzzpop bands, were supporting. Grass Widow were great, as expected, but C&tG completely blew them out of the water. Ian Svenonius, of many bands including Nation Of Ulysses, really is one of the best frontmen I've ever seen, and the rhythm section, in their trademark prison garb, churned out astonishingly powerful, dirty rock'n'roll. The vocals were the real star - Svenonius treads the line between highly intellectual and highly ridiculous, but in a live setting pretty much everything he did seemed to come off well, with songs that really don't do anything on the record ('Detroit Music', 'What Is A Dollar?') going down surprisingly well. 'Deathbed Confession' was saved for the encore, and, despite impending last-tube deadlines, was stretched out to 20 minutes of mostly spoken word vocals over a repetitive riff. And it was brilliant - not only were the protagonists resposible for the killings of JFK, MLK and all the others on the record, but also for things like the spread of fast-food chains.
It might sound terrible. But it was ace.
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