GIG REVIEW : THE YOUNG KNIVES : EDINBURGH LIQUID ROOMS : MONDAY 17th MARCH

I suppose I have to confess at the outset of this review – I sort of received payment for it….but that in itself has no bearing on my opinions.

It was last Saturday that Mrs Villain and myself headed off to the Fubar in Stirling to catch The Young Knives on the tour to promote the new album, Superabundance. Why Stirling?? Well, there wasn’t a Glasgow gig on this tour, and this was the nearest venue.

Sadly, the night was nowhere near as good as it could have been, and it was all down to the venue which to be quite frank is appalling. It’s no more than a glorified pub/disco, and the stage, such as it is, is behind a couple of leather benches that keep the band away from the audience. I’ve no doubt the band and support acts were a bit dismayed when they arrived…and I don’t think things were helped by a less than capacity audience, many of whom it seemed to me had come along just because there was a rare opportunity to see a ‘name’ band in the locality and not necessarily because they were fans.

This was the fourth time we had seen TYK in less than 18 months – all of the previous gigs had been pulsating affairs in Glasgow. This time…well the band did try hard, and it was, for us, an enjoyable night, especially as we were hearing so many new songs in a live context for the first time. But it didn’t quite spark…..

At the end of the night I grabbed a quick word with the road crew and said that I had been really disappointed with the venue and audience, and hoped the band weren’t too hacked off with things. I also cheekily asked, for the purposes of a review in a blog, if I could be added to the guest list for the Edinburgh gig. Without even asking about the blog, the roadie said no problem and just asked for my name….

And so ladies and gentlemen, at the ripe old age of 44 and ¾, I finally got the chance in life to breeze past the security outside the Liquid Room in Edinburgh with the words, ‘I’m on the guest list’. Even at this stage, I wasn’t sure if the roadie would have remembered, so it was a relief when I went to the ticket desk and said ‘Jim Clark plus one’ to see my name printed there as guests of the band.

Thus, my statement that I was sort of paid for the review.

This is in fact the third review of a TYK gig in the pages of TVV. You can read past efforts here and here.

If anything, this was the most enjoyable night of the lot so far.

It’s a brave act to open up with your one chart hit – the one you would expect to be held back for the encore - but that’s exactly what happened in the first three minutes as they launched into She’s Attracted To. It was a move that took just about everyone by surprise – and I’m still not sure if it was done to get it out of the way to stop it being shouted for, or whether it was tort to get the crowd going from the start.

For the next hour, it was very much a set dominated by tracks from Superabundance, which is no crime in my book, for it really is a more than decent album.

Now I know that there are many folk out there who detest TYK (yes, I’m talking about you Matthew James Young aka Toad). They are seen by some as a one-trick pony, churning out bog-standard indie-pop with guitars and shouty choruses. All I would ask folk with such opinions is to give them a proper try and listen to what they are doing.

I’m not going to claim there’s anything earth-shatteringly original or different. But….if you have any love or respect for bands like XTC, Blur, The Teardrop Explodes or The Kinks, then you will find something to delight you in the songs of TYK. The new album, which was recorded in Glasgow with Tony Dougan (long-time associate of Belle & Sebastian) has some stunning and unexpected stuff on it, with string arrangements and trumpet from Mick Cooke (again of B&S).

Played live, the songs are every bit as good, for this is a band of exceptional ability. And the other night, on a proper stage, in front of an audience that was a mixture of fans and the curious perhaps intrigued by some reasonable reviews for Superabundance in much of the media, they tore the place apart.

So far, there have been two great singles from the album – Terra Firma and Up All Night – which have both stalled at around about number 43 in the charts.

Mrs Villain reckons the lack of chart success, which I think is beginning to really get to the band going by some of the comments made on stage, is down to the sheer ordinariness of the trio and the fact that the media can’t focus in on a charismatic good-looking individual in a shallow world obsessed by image and not talent. Evidence?? Well, Mrs Villain likes TYK in the same way that she likes Kaiser Chiefs because they make infectious and fun pop-records. One lot are mega and the other are minor-league….

The singer of TYK describes himself as ‘Jowly’, the bass player admits he is a Fat Bastard and the drummer hardly says a word. The photos of these guys do not sell glossy copy…..nor do they make TV executives quiver with excitement as they are hardly likely to draw a teen audience that the advertisers drool over…

And it’s a worry. I’m not sure how much longer a band as good as this can take the persistent near misses. Both of the above mentioned singles, as well as forthcoming release Turn Tail were among the highlights, along with the brooding and dark I Can Hardly See Them. Instant pop classics Dyed In The Wool and Rue The Days (the latter being something that wouldn’t sound out of place on Modern Life Is Rubbish, one of the best LPs of the 1990s) also went down exceptionally well. As did the three-song encore of Loughborough Suicide, Stand and Deliver, and The Decision.

With a bit of luck, TYK will hop on the festival circuit this coming summer and be discovered by whole new audiences who will then turn Superabundance into a real slow-burner. Who knows, the interest might be such that there will be a demand for flop singles to be re-released and the singles charts will be deservedly cracked.

The worst case scenario would be that TYK get so disillusioned that they call it a day without making a third LP. Not only would this be a shame, but it would be an indictment of what is wrong with music today. They are far more talented and enjoyable than most of their peers – and far more deserving of success and attention.

mp3 : The Young Knives – Coastguard
mp3 : The Young Knives – Terra Firma

So thanks guys for a brilliant night. I hope there’s plenty more of them still to come.

Buy Superabundance right here. The CD/DVD version is well worth it….every song has a lovingly made promo to accompany it.