Cornershop perform an ace show that avoids emo-demo

Cornershop’s tour to promote new album ‘Handcream For A Generation’ around the UK came to an interesting end in London. It was an intriguing show, a bit confusing, performed from a distance… Something strange goes on onstage, or – to put it properly – it doesn’t. Cornershop perform music with great aptitude but without actually appearing to get involved in the process.

The intro-tape of Otis Clay’s ‘Heavy Soup’ is picked up by individually emerging musicians – bassist, guitarist, drummer et all – with Tjinder Singh looking rather on edge, visibly neurotic about the whole set-up. Despite all the success the band still behave as they are slightly at odds with the whole rock business; Singh, dressed in an immaculate suit, looks like a man on a way to a City job. The line from an old Talking Heads song springs to mind: “And you may ask yourself/ How did I get here?”

The answer is simple, on the merit of great music – and Mercury Award nominated debut disc ‘Born For The Seventh Time’ – that’s a fusion of so many different elements: rock, funk, politico-pop, hip-hop, atmo, Bollywood soundtracks… It is a such a great mixture that you wish that people open their ears and let these goodies in instead of all the ‘Tot Idols’ crap… This is a mélange that takes any true music lover (and the evidence points to our numbers declining rapidly) to a place where fantasising is obligatory: an East End club, the Ganges’ bank, inside a fictitious film, on the mean and ignorant streets of urbanity, amidst the decaying civilisation… (Did you know that if Londoners left it would take only 50 years for nature to reclaim it by obliterating all our ‘achievements’?!)

Watching Cornershop is tricky because the external demonstration ought to reflect the inner workings but there is no emo-demo of any kind. Songs are played and that’s it, which has been Cornershop’s style that might suit them fine while the audience remains mainly on the outside of participation. Singh shies away from rapport and hardly ever addresses the fans; when he does, to introduce a guest singer for ‘Brimful Of Asha’, as much as being a surprise (to us) it is mumbled and people look at each other with that expression of “What did he just say?”

And yet, their biggest hit sounded a trifle too pedestrian compared with the live version of ‘Lessons Learned From Rocky I-III’ that is simply so catchy – it should be re-promoted! There are other, great musical moments, ‘Sleep On The Left Side’, the incredible cover of The Beatles’s ‘Norwegian Wood’, ‘6AM Jullander Shere’, the finale of ‘Spectral Mornings… Sitars, some exotic percussion, a few helpings of pre-recorded parts, the six-strong backing band plays wondrously but don’t project.

On the way out people comment on the great gig and how brill they were… Perhaps I come from the old-skool and wanted to see something more than just static renditions, however ace. In my defence, your honour, I’m just a flawed human being after all, with an individualistic view of the world that is different to any of the other 6 billion sorry inhabitants of this ‘Third Rock From The Sun’. Enjoyed it, nonetheless.