Tiny Dancers - King's College, London, 5/1/2006
by Sarah Maybank
published: 7 / 1 / 2007
intro
Sarah Maynard at the Kings College in London watches acoustic pop act Tiny Dancers make an early claim towards being a potential stadium act of the future
Never underestimate the band that gets the pretty girls dancing. When you’re a babe so hot you only have to quiver an eyelash to get slavering males to do your every bidding, why bother moving anything else - ever? But within minutes of Tiny Dancers sauntering on stage, all the fit girls have formed a horseshoe at the front and are clapping like hyped- up circus seals. It’s an achievement so big it’d even strain the elastic of Bernard Manning’s Y-fronts - put it this way, none of the band look like Johnny Depp. With folky, grown-up type melodies that parents tell you will "take a few listens to get", Tiny Dancers evoke Steeleye Span waltzing with Fleetwood Mac on a village green one balmy summer’s evening. They’re great for impressing a date with your sophisticated taste in acoustic pop. But living hell if you’re a Venga Boys fan who inexplicably found themselves at the wrong gig. In a bid to deter Terry Wogan show listeners they do their best to quirk things up. The stage is decorated like a uni fresher girls’ bedroom – all vintage standard lamps, plastic flowers and Russian dolls. Stick-man singer David Kay swirls around deliriously in Prince Charming-era Adam Ant make-up and a floral shirt, and they inject squirts of funk with squelchy synth bleeps hijacked from Hot Chip. But each song is so defiantly listenable there’s not a daytime radio schedule that’d turn it away, even it got the programmer in a headlock and bit off their ears. Are they going to be huge? Let’s examine the evidence. The image: a bunch of science students fronted by an ardent poet-type. Songs so likeable Will Smith is suing for copyright theft. Output likely to be sneered at by snidey-boy journalists, while selling millions by getting girls in all the right places. Don’t fight it, Tiny Dancers. With Coldplay ‘resting’ and Keane in rehab fallout, there’s a stadium-band sized gap waiting to be filled. Your time is now.
Picture Gallery:-
reviews |
Free School Milk (2007) |
Energetic and joyful-sounding debut album from 60's and early 70's Yorkshire-based group Tiny Dancers |
Hannah, We Know (2007) |
I Will Wait for You (2007) |
Lions and Tigers and Lions (2006) |
most viewed articles
current edition
Screamin' Cheetah Wheelies - Sala Apolo, Barcelona, 29/11/2023 and La Paqui, Madrid, 30/11/2023Anthony Phillips - Interview
Difford and Tilbrook - Difford and Tilbrook
Rain Parade - Interview
Oldfield Youth Club - Interview
Autumn 1904 - Interview
Shaw's Trailer Park - Interview
Cafe No. 9, Sheffield and Grass Roots Venues - Comment
Pete Berwick - ‘Too Wild to Tame’: The story of the Boyzz:
Chris Hludzik - Vinyl Stories
previous editions
Microdisney - The Clock Comes Down the StairsHeavenly - P.U.N.K. Girl EP
World Party - Interview
Michael Lindsay Hogg - Interview
Ain't That Always The Way - Alan Horne After The Sound of Young Scotland 2
Joy Division - The Image That Made Me Weep
World Party - Interview with Karl Wallinger
Dwina Gibb - Interview
Barrie Barlow - Interview
Prisoners - Interview
most viewed reviews
current edition
Marika Hackman - Big SighSerious Sam Barrett - A Drop of the Morning Dew
Rod Stewart and Jools Holland - Swing Fever
Ian M Bailey - We Live in Strange Times
Loves - True Love: The Most of The Loves
Paul McCartney and Wings - Band on the Run
Autumn 1904 - Tales of Innocence
Roberta Flack - Lost Takes
Banter - Heroes
Posey Hill - No Clear Place to Fall
Pennyblackmusic Regular Contributors
Adrian Janes
Amanda J. Window
Andrew Twambley
Anthony Dhanendran
Benjamin Howarth
Cila Warncke
Daniel Cressey
Darren Aston
Dastardly
Dave Goodwin
Denzil Watson
Dominic B. Simpson
Eoghan Lyng
Fiona Hutchings
Harry Sherriff
Helen Tipping
Jamie Rowland
John Clarkson
Julie Cruickshank
Kimberly Bright
Lisa Torem
Maarten Schiethart