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Live Review
by SashaS
11-12-2002
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| A Datsun on bass and vocal Rock duty |
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Live: The Datsuns
Astoria, London
Sunday, November 10, 2002
The Datsuns are precariously happy Rock deviants
Change-over from Hellacopters to The Datsuns is filled with taped music with gaps between tracks and that’s when the deafening sound of empty talk hits the claustrophobic level while the fans are waiting for the men… to entertain! And they certainly do, from the very moment they hit the spotlights.
The Datsuns are archetypal rockers, looking the part and playing with the veterans’ strut! This is the 21st century music that can easy fit onto a bygone compilation; the band keeps it basic, raw, spirited and simple, there are no added visuals to clatter the sonic attack that is utterly rockistic! The Datsuns have mixed elements of all rocking styles to create aural picture that honours enduring principles.
They are not too heavy to be Nu- or any kind of (modern) metal, they are not intense enough to be considered grunge and they are too rocky to be just punks while being all of it! And they – all related alike The Ramones – keep it reasonable: for all the noise there is, no excessive volume (of Spinal Tap’s ‘11’ setting) gets to us without losing on attitude!
There are metallish guitar solos but they are only minimal, there is a booming bass/drums unison that comes from the grunge Hell and enough vitality to keep punks among us happy as ‘herbal Prozac” [© Joe Strummer] does a Rasta-man. Even songs that sound like being on the gentler side, ‘Lady’, is performed as if the singer is furious with the babe of the song; ‘Harmonic Generator’ causes the initially polite moshpit to erupt into a huge sea of colliding bodies… Some tech problems with a guitar amp delay a show for a trice but ‘What Would I Know’ suffers none for it.
Lightening riffs also adorn a new song, ‘Cherry Love’, but it is getting more complex, the arrangement is layered, there are several breaks and pace changes for it all to climax with rocking it as if ‘pedal-to-the-floor’ is the only way to drive this racing machine. Dolf de Datsun fronts the band with flare, abandon, coolness and energy, purging all the evil that Rock is supposed to extricate from our sinful bods! There is something tribal about this music, it touches primal depths in fans.
This show also provided a clue to why Brit-Rock hopefuls – LostProphets, A, The Music, to name some signed to the major labels – fail to spread butter on the global toast. They are inspired by some parochial British influences and make music that is without an edge of l’esprit de musique teenesque. While the world’s musos have been finding inspiration in Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and some other cool 1960s bands as The Kinks and The Yardbirds, building career that borrow idioms without photo-stating but pumped by instinct, while bands like Idlewild, as well as Supergrass (get off that Bolan-wagon, it’s bloody redundant bull!) tend to make laboured, dull and entirely uninspiring music.
No British artist of today has anything to offer to rival The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Vines, The DATSUNS! The last named is simply the top feelgood Rock’n’Roll! A band member’s(?) girlfriend dancing in the wings as if she were plugged-in reflects the way The Datsuns made my soul feel!
SashaS
11-12-2002
The Datsuns’ album ‘The Datsuns’ is available now on v2
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