Coats and Hearts on Fire

Neil Jones on The Long Blondes at Cardiff's Clwb Ifor Bach

Wednesday March 26th, 2008

I remember first setting eyes on The Long Blondes. It was instant love, or was it lust? The name for sure was ultra-seductive, and married to the coolly informed indie-punk stomp of the music it really took me in. The instant passion though was never consummated with a full blown Pop obsession, for whatever reasons, probably a load of them, The Blondes went on their own path to glossy mag acclaim, and I stayed on mine of slightly more bashful Pop dreams.

Mainstream press writings about the band came and went, then the ‘Weekend Without Make-Up’ single that I wrote about in passing elsewhere, which I LIKED for sure (Pop sacrilege no 1) but again never fell Irredeemably in love with, and then that interview in Plan B by Everett True that spawned the great Oscar Wilde paraphrase that the Blondes are “laying in the gutter looking at the stars”, while the likes of Arctic Monkeys would be “laying in the gutter looking at the gutter”. That drew me back a little, and so did the next single, ‘Separated By Motorways’, an ultra-cool blast of indie romance if ever I’ve heard it that prompted me to borrow the album off Scott.

Still though I remained a distant and uncommitted admirer, and so it as that tonight I trickle into Clwb Ifor Bach hoping for Love at Last. The “warm-up” music for this type of gig, where the band seem to materialise in a venue straight out of the pages of NME, is usually shite, but here’s Serge Gainsbourg playing in the background. It’s fantastic, and sets the anticipatory juices flowing further. The crowd here are kids on the more outsider edge of indie disco revellers, which is fitting too. Then Gainsbourg fades, lights go down, faces blur, we’re left standing to flickering shards from the Clwb disco ball, and here come the band. It’s an electronic flourish from Emma Chaplin’s keyboard, a little burst of atmospherica, and the drums and bass lift us away.

The Long Blondes do glam-rock with their heads in Popish stars, and it’s instantly, awesomely seductive. It looks so good too, in an essentially underplayed manner. Singer Kate Jackson shimmies to some fine disco flourishes, etched by Chaplin like she means what they say, guitarist Dorian Cox and bassist Reenie Hollis concentrating on their humble lines, and it’s all going off in fine style. The second song is a thumping echo of the hits, steadily shimmering and just threatening to steal hearts, the third song rocks it more, but in a way so cuttingly and passionately stylish that I’m on the verge of abandoning myself to the sultry world front stage. But why do they acknowledge the applause afterwards? It’s too bourgeois, you can’t stop now for anything, the heat has steadily risen, and people are burning up in here.
A ballad next is not what’s called for. The bead of sweat that’s rolling down my back feels foolish to it. While The Blondes did Glam and Disco with an utter compulsion of the moment and the New Pop Now, this has its head too far in the 80s, and it’s the kind of prosaic 80s of Human League rather than the sparkling one of, say, The Church Grims. A middling track now, but we’re waiting for them to explode once more, and just know it’s going to happen… At least they’re not posing and posturing about, the band are ever earnest and pleasant in their glamorous way, and this makes the wait for something MORE to happen bearable. They keep threatening, ‘Tommy Boy’ has that prime Elastica stutter. Sustain it. Then blow it to shreds.

The next track has an awesome drumbeat mingling with an epic guitar, but it ploughs too linear a furrow to steal our Pop hearts, though Kate crosses her arms in a manner that almost does mine. Another burst of the slightly industry bourgeois with a thankyou and a mention of the new album, a little too much waiting around, but the "next single" is worth it, a reggaeish guitar stutter that Jackson threads with some of her finest droolworthy vocals.

I'm starting to love Kate now. She's completely immersed in immaculate indie dreams. Her vocals attain the swagger of prime Debbie Harry, sung with a tender soul that really gets me. ‘Giddy Stratospheres’ flies next, and all the Blondes' stars collide in a sultry stylish swoop that's just essential. The crowd would be bouncing, but that's not really the thing to do to The Long Blondes. We just sway, slightly transfixed.

Then, somewhat inexplicably, it's all over. No ‘Weekend Without Make-Up’, no ‘Seperated by Motorways’? It's a bit shitty, and it’s not as if the Blondes have to convince us they’re not U2 yet. Somewhat stunned, we file out of Clwb like we've been ejected from lovers’ beds in the early hours. Yeah, it's been great, but maybe more a brush with an indie-rock coquette than a Pop sweetheart. A whispering of the sweetest nothings and everythings and then gone. I’ll etch “The Long Blondes” into a tree with a knife, but not onto paper with my blood. Not quite yet.

© 2008 Neil Jones

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