Raveonettes - Astoria, London, 6/2/2004

  by Anthony Strutt

published: 30 / 1 / 2004

intro

At his first gig of the year from his favourite new band of last year, the Raveonettes, watches the Danish duo put on another polished and impressive show and perform in front of a mosh pit for the first time

This was my first gig of the year from my favourite new band of last year, my beloved The Raveonettes. The evening started off with everyone coming through the door being hassled like sheep by the over the top Astoria security guards. This is rock n roll guys. We are not terrorists, chaps! So what if a camera got in ? I watched the first band, the Duke Spirit, and this cool coffee-coloured girl next to me asked me who I was writing for. I told her and she smiled and then offered me her unwanted beer. My friends ask me how do I do it. That first band, the Duke Spirit, were pretty good. Frontwoman ,Liela Moss, sounds a little like Patti Smith, while the rest of her band had a Stooges and grungy sound. I was told afterwards that they were formely known as Solomon. Next up were the Delays. They were a little like the Thrills and had a Byrds-style summer pop sound. They were bit boring if you know the real thing, but their singles do grow on you After that there was Har, Har Superstar,who looked like an overweight version of the hardcore porn star Ron Jeremy. I didn't really like him but the audience did. I thought it was a joke, a white rapper, singing rocked up Prince-style disco numbers to a backing tape but he had a stage presence and no doubt will be massive, especially in weekend, party, and gay crowd circles. After the first song he was joined by two very sexy girls on stage who had great figures and as much on as lapdancers. He was on for too long and by the last number had stripped to his underpants, which was not a nice sight. By the time Sune Rose Wagner, Sharin Foo and co. joined us on the stage I was really looking forward to a bit of relief and some guitar screeching feedback drowned pop. It was not the best set I have seen them do, and they were perhaps a little rusty having had two months off, but they were great as usual and did a few new numbers and even had a mosh pit for the first time. They are still my favourite band and cool as hell, but the set was a bit short at just under 50 minutes.

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