GIG REVIEWS

The Kills
@ Leadmill, Sheffield
14.06.03
www.vanguard-online.co.uk

 In a claustrophobic cold sweat sex bleeding shit-hole, The Kills trip out their rock'n'roll in front of an audience of wasted hipsters. No glib statements, no sleep, no food, no breath between black-fag drags, and pulsating relentless music, driving home, steely and cold, thumping, never resting. Except this is no shit hole, and this audience aren't wasted it' s not claustrophobic or menacing- I'm actually feeling quite chipper, and the re's no sex, not much bleeding and no cold sweat. It's hard to know what to make of The Kills- yes, they sound terrific and the 21st Century blues style suits them. Most of their set is really impressive, the awesome iconic hooks and perfectly controlled vocals working in conjunction to produce something inbetween the Velvet Underground and Captain Beefheart. Particularly evident in a song such as 91Superstition' is the close attention they have paid to their forerunners, recalling a 91Rid Of Me' era Poll y Harvey, Boss Hoggs' first album, and inevitably the White Stripes. The latter d o bear a striking resemblance to The Kills, what with the Hotel/VV/Jack/Meg issue, but it's only fleeting; a closer look proves The Kills peddle a dirtier and more sex-drenched music, have no pretence about their charged relationship, an d are aiming of course for a much less commercial fame. Despite all these fantastic qualities, though, I am left feeling slightly duped. Just a little, but enough to make me less than confident that what I witnessed from The Kills wasn't actually real, and that if they had left the awkward posturing, tactical smoking and fake-o sexual advances to their casual imitators the whole thing might have gone down the john, proverbially speaking. What made this roosty garage blues type of music so fascinating in the first place was that its creators were so unfazed by the heroin-drenched hopelessness of their lives, that they didn't even think to extract it from their music, or remove it from their live performance. The Kills may be rock'n'roll, but by forcing this concept into their art when it is not really there they become self-aware, and the pretence is immediately lost. Funnily enough, when the show is finished I bump into VV over by the cigarette machine, and corner her into answering a couple of questions. She tells me that she enjoyed the show very much, and that English audiences are fantastically poetical. We vaguely chat for a while about The Futureheads and then muse over Courtney Love's dress sense, before a roadie gestures from the door and she has to go. As she turns and walks away I notice the black rollies have been shoved into her back pocket, and in her hand is a rather less enigmatic 20-pack of Marlboro Lights. Says it all, really.

Gemma Hinchliffe