Live: The Indelicates and The Space Peacocks

I know I haven’t posted anything for a few days. I started listening to and liking a number of songs by The Fratellis, so I checked myself into rehab. I’m feeling slightly better now though, so we’ve got some catching up to be doing.

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I don’t get to gigs anywhere near as often as I would like, so when I hear about a band I like playing somewhere relatively local I’m there in a second. In this case, it was hearing that The Indelicates would be playing at the Command House in Chatham on January 26, a mere day before my birthday. I had never been to the Command House previously, nor did I know any of the other bands playing. It was (I think) the first gig put on by upstart promoters The People’s Republic of Chatham, so hopefully things like this will become something of a regular event.

We managed to miss the first band, but made it in just as the second were taking to the stage. Not that the Command House has a stage. The downstairs bit used for music is so small the bands just set up in the middle of the floor in front of the audience. Which is pretty cool, even if it makes it a little difficult to see at times. Anyway, these five curious dressed people were setting up, and I had no idea who they are. Usually when I don’t know a band that’s playing, I pay them little attention, but these guys won me over very quickly.

They turned out to be The Space Peacocks, a local band who I had never heard of before, further proving that either the local scene is useless at promoting itself, or I’m entirely ignorant. They started playing with a fantastic energy that remained throughout their set of shambolic, tacky yet wonderful pop songs. The delivery all had an Art Brut kind of vibe about it, with their shouty, talky vocals. This obviously wasn’t lost on the band as they even managed to name check the Art Brut folks in one of their songs.

The sound in the Command House meant keeping track of the lyrics was a little tricky, but I managed to score some mp3s off the band a few days later, some of which you’ll find below. ‘Captain of a Starship’ is a back and forth between James Kirk and one of his female conquests, while ‘Cliché (On My Face)’ takes a well deserved swipe at hipsters who feel the need to wear sunglasses no matter what. Of course, when played live, the band donned sunglasses for an extra slice of irony.

MP3 The Space Peacocks – Cliché (On My Face) (expired)
MP3 The Space Peacocks – Captain of a Starship (expired)
MP3 The Space Peacocks – Assassination City (expired)

The Space Peacocks: Website || Myspace

One quick changeover later and it was time for the main act. The Indelicates took to the stage and immediately launched into ‘The Last Significant Statement Made In Rock & Roll’, a song I was unfamiliar with. It turned out to be a great, driven rock song though, and it will be the lead song from the band’s upcoming German tour EP. After this though, I’m not really sure what songs were played and in what order. I didn’t know a lot of the songs, largely because I only know the ones I’ve been able to grab from the net, and it turns out there are so many more.

This didn’t seem to be of concern to the crowd though. The Command House doesn’t hold many people, but those there were among the most excitable audience I’ve ever been in. The Indelicates are no strangers to the place, having played there at least twice before, and this led to a great atmosphere with audience participation and singing along being the name of the game. Nowhere was this more evident than on a shambolic rendition of ‘New Art For The People’, where Simon Indelicate stepped back from his parts, handing the microphone over to pretty much the entire crowd as the song progressed. Thankfully it didn’t quite get to me, but it was a lot of fun hearing everyone else have their moment to shine, with the song ending with The Space Peacocks back on stage singing along. Of course, the one picture that exists of the crowd (to the right) makes them, including me, look entirely miserable, but we’ll overlook that.

As usual with this sort of thing, the faster, rockier songs went down slightly better than the slower, more ballad like ones, but nearly all of the songs came across well. The band played for the best part of an hour before finally bringing events to a close with a driven performance of standout single ‘We Hate The Kids’, with it’s final refrain of “No more music, thank you and goodnight” proving to be an appropriate way to finish.

MP3 The Indelicates – Julia, We Don’t Live In The 60s (expired)
MP3 The Indelicates – New Art For The People (expired)

The Indelicates: Website || Myspace

All photos by Julia Indelicate or Chris Baldacci.

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So that’s one of the things on my list to write about out of the way. I might just do a huge post tonight or tomorrow that includes a lot of the stuff I want to share or I’m just going to get completely overwhealmed by the backlog.