The Go! Team at Cardiff Coal Exchange 07/03/2006

This is the first ever gig review I’ve ever written so I’m sorry about the overall quality of the writing, I’m not a music journalist although obviously I’m better than the NME’s writers.

For all the effort I was putting in, I knew that this gig had to be worth it. I had missed them before as I couldn’t go to reading last year and all the Go! Team’s other shows were too hard to get to. I had suffered a minor setback as I had lost my Young person’s railcard which I haven’t renewed yet, so it cost me £25 for a single from Kemble station to Cardiff. Needless to say I was pretty eggy.
I arrived at the Coal exchange on time, but the gig was delayed, keeping everyone outside for about half an hour later than planned. The Coal Exchange is a nice medium sized venue with a wooden finish inside. Hilariously enough I nearly made the mistake of going into the ladies as I found my way out from the Gents. Some of the music played by the PA was pretty lame, such as Liberty X. The gig was sold out so was very full. I watched the whole gig from in front of the mixing desk which wasn’t a good idea as I got a bit squashed as others moved back and I had nowhere to move to.
The first band on were Seattle duo Smoosh, who turned out to be better than most people thought with a surprisingly heavy piano and some nice drumming. I am not sure about their rap-style song although it sounded cool and reminded me of ‘The denial Twist’ by the White Stripes. I noted to myself that Smoosh were better than the Strokes when I saw them live at Reading.
2nd on, Australian femme-punkers The Grates were more conventional and my first thoughts on them were that ‘someone’s heard the Yeah yeah yeah’s album’. Nothing wrong with that though as the Yeah Yeah yeah’s rule, although the Grates weren’t as brilliant as YYYs but were still pretty good. Their frontwoman was extremely hyperactive, a bit like Karen O, and I don’t know if they’d be as good without her making it more fun. Anyway it was their drummer Alana’s birthday, although we never found out her age. Ninja from the Go! Team thought she was over 25 as she didn’t reveal her age but she looked as if she was still a teenager.

Before the Go! Team, the in-between music got slightly better as it sounded like a compilation done by the Team Themselves. They started off the set with a barely recognisable but still brilliant ‘Panther Dash’ with complete added rapping. At this point I thought it was going to be a bit like Bob Dylan live as you had to guess what the songs were as they’d been altered too much. Then they went straight into ‘Get It Together’ which was more recognisable with Ninja taking on the recorder duties and adding some freestyles to the scratching at the end. Next up was a new song ‘We Just Won’t Be Defeated,’ which I’d, previously heard on the Team’s 4Music documentary (Actually I found out that it’s now on the reissue of the album). All of the 5 new songs they played were all really good and sound like the best songs from the debut (i.e. Bottle Rocket, Huddle Formation, ladyflash). Then they played B-Side ‘the Ice Storm’ which I don’t think fit the party mood of the other songs although it was still good. This was followed by two more new songs, one of which I think is called ‘Rap the Mike’ and it was so new it had only been performed once or twice before. All the new songs featured more vocals than the songs on the album, this is due to band leader Ian Parton wanting the new material to be more live-band orientated rather than all the samples of the ‘Thunder, Lightning Strike’ debut. I noticed that the new guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Kaori Tsuchida took up more of the vocals even ones previously sung by Ninja. As the vocals on the album are less comprehensible than Ninja’s lyrics to the live show, she took time to teach different sides of the audience the words to ‘Huddle Formation’ and newie ‘Doing It Right’. The version of ‘The power is on’ was noticeably brilliant and a definite highlight. Despite a minor hitch with Junior Kickstart’s horns going off prematurely, Drummer Chi‘s solo spot on ‘Hold Yr. terror Close’ was really well received by the crowd. Then the rest of the band came back onstage, launching straight into ‘Junior Kickstart’. The original set was finished by a storming ‘Bottle Rocket’ and a new song whose name I can’t remember. The encore was ‘Everyone’s A V.I.P. to Someone’ with Ninja instructing people to get their lighter’s out, and then their signature tune ‘Ladyflash’ as a finale with everyone instructed to dance. It was the last night of the tour as Southampton’s gig had been cancelled due to Ninja’s voice being lost (Not that it sounded like she was losing it). This resulted in Smoosh and the Grates coming back on stage with balloons. It was also mentioned at this point that Ian’s parents were both Welsh. As soon as the applause had faded ‘Silver Rocket’ by Sonic Youth was played over the P.A. and so ended an impressive evening which was well worth the hassle as well as the money spent on getting there.

THE SETLIST (As Far As I Can Remember):
Siren/Intro
Panther dash
Get It Together
We Just Won’t Be Defeated
The Ice storm
Huddle Formation
Rap The Mike?
We Listen Everyday?
The power Is On
Hold Yr. Terror Close
Air Raid Guitar
Junior Kickstart
Doing It Right?
Bottle Rocket
New Song (Possibly Titanic Vestation?)
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Everyone’s A V.I.P. to someone
Ladyflash