GIG REVIEWS
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GIG REVIEWS |
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Cornershop
@ The Concorde, Brighton 15th April 2002 www.vanguard-online.co.uk Its not every night the Brighton Concorde can boast to have something for everyone in one hit. Their name in lights, reminiscent of a fifties film set was the first impression of the arrival of Cornershop to our Sussex coast. A seemingly relaxed and friendly looking bloke, the new bass player led the seven strong band on to begin with a version of "Heavy Soup" a fitting name for a warming introduction, an instrumental, almost a jam gave us a brief taster of what we were in for. Lead, rhythm and bass guitar together with a percussionist, drummer and sitar player all part of the innovative and dare I say..the horrible pretentious word, 'eclectic' and mould breaking Cornershop. It was, I think about a quarter of the way through "Jullandar Shere" I became aware that I was totally hooked for the evening, sucked in to this fifteen minutes of trance-like anthem. My, how I wished I understood Punjabi in this moment. The evidently contradictory Tjinder Singh, seemingly expressionless yet boldly chanting with intense brown eyes glancing upwards as if to draw strength from above. This mix of sequenced electronic drum beats, a hardcore British rock drummer, tight guitars and a bongo player that looked as though he may take off left me wanting to rewind this brief experience of my life and play it back very slowly... "Staging the plaguing of the raised platform" was the third, triumphant and more melodic offering, set against a backdrop of a hypnotic drumbeat and what sounded like a childrens choir blasting through the speakers with 'making the dope, dope' and causing me to investigate the crowd at the front, initially thinking it was the crowd joining in with the Singh-ing! "Good Shit" gave us a possible T-Rex influenced or a real English rock sound spiced with tambourines, Latin guiro and again Tjinder's focused gaze, deadpan vocal and strange aura of calm. "Mar Sharl" saw the introduction of the Tamboura one of India's most famous stringed instruments played by rhythm guitarist Ben Ayres, more thought provoking Punjabi lyrics, oddball samples and frantic guitars. "Butter the Soul" had the un-obtrusive yet charming sitar claiming all of our attention over the now established pace yet still intriguing East/West mix. It took me a few seconds to recognise the cover of our timeless Beatles classic Norweigan Wood (this bird as flown) which began with a acoustic guitar on pick-up and ebbed into gentle Punjabi lyrics...innovation at the extreme!! A familiar sight for the group l am sure as the crowd lurched forward on hearing Tjinders first few bars of "Brimful of Asha", the tribute to Indian film star Asha Bolse, as if to remind us this band are capable of so much more than this chart topping smash, the black on white backdrop projected "Handcream for a generation" a suggestive reminder to us all to give this thought provoking new album some time. Lessons learned from Rocky I to Rocky III" is a humourous and tongue in cheek song, directing a blow at manufactured nu-metal, and saw a still relatively sullen Tjinder completly straightfaced while citing ' the overgrown super shit' (first letters spelling TOSS) and 'chicks with dicks' and set against what must be the most powerful riffs to echo around the room for a long time. A quick ten minute break and they were back..with a mammoth fourteen minutes of "Spectral Mornings" the frantic percussionist still with barely a bead of sweat, percussion instruments being passed around the group who as well as the crowd were now at the stage of whipped up frenzy, Singh the exception of course, this enigmatic man almost aloof but in my opinion a fresh, magical talent who's songwriting and production abilities fully compensate for a lack of stage presence. Cornershop, unlike many bands are the type you could revisit again and again, noticing subtle ingredients maybe missed the first time. They are back and we welcome them with open arms and open minds.
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