By Jase Walker
Seemingly every year, around December, Electric Six tour the ÜK, and every single year for a long time now I’ve failed to actually catch them. Until now at least… Tonight’s stop is at the underground part of Manchester’s student union, Club Academy, and Electric Six have brought The Kut along with them for this winter tour.
The Kut have actually started more than 15 minutes earlier than written on the stage times, which is a little bit weird and means they aren’t exactly playing to many people given it’s not exactly been long since the doors opened. The colourful, all women punk rock band are still powering through despite the sparsely populated crowd. They sound bloody great: big chunky bass, crunchy guitar and punchy drums with harmonizing vocals, exactly what you want with a punk rock band innit? As with other femme/woman led bands, many song topics draw heavily on lived experiences dealing with sexism and discrimination ranging from casual to the extreme and The Kut hit on this heavily as well.
Looking around the crowd I can see plenty of bobbing heads which is usually a great indicator that they’re coming across well to people who may not really know them. The stage performance itself is pretty bare bones, no gimmicks, just straight banging out solid riffs and catchy songs that sound great. The Kit’s knocked out some really solid earworms that have been easy to get on board with and pick up, this is pretty evident by hearing the murmurs of people close by picking up the words after the first time round. Overall, a pretty fun band to watch and listen to, absolutely nothing to fault ‘em on and it’s good to see that by the time the end of their set drew in, the venue was much busier as well!
Just before Electric Six are due on, I make my way closer to the front and the venue by this point is absolutely bloody heaving with people.
They’re not quite ‘Electric Six’ as their synth player has just had a child so they’re opening with ‘Synthesizer’ which is completely unexpected for me, not complaining though, I love this song! I’m also quite amused by the crowd’s immediate response to Dick’s waving along to the song. God it’s been so very very long since I saw these last, I think I was still in college at the time but they still sound every bit as fantastic as they did back then. It’s great that we get some small comedic bits in-between songs as well as their wacky songs too.
I don’t think I can hear any synth backing track so I’m guessing that they’ve just opted to push ahead as is as well, which is kind of nice in that they’ve not just subbed them out for a tape deck; still sounds great too. I’m also surprised at how many words I remember, especially with ‘Naked Pictures Of Your Mother’. It’d been a while since I last gave them a listen so I’d also forgotten just how funk disco they are overall too, well, in addition to the frequently silly songs as well. It would appear the whole crowds been waiting for ‘Gay Bar’ from the outset and what I thought would still be a finisher is actually a random mid-set pick, probably shouldn’t surprise anyone they immediately followed it with ‘Gay Bar Pt. 2’. We’re getting a lot of older bangers so far too: ‘She’s White’ is another old favourite of mine! Hang on, did they say *20* albums now? I mean I knew they had a few but I must have lost count somewhere around album seven!
Even ‘Danger! High-Voltage’ isn’t on as a set closer, which again surprises me, but I’ll roll with it: this set’s got 20 albums of material to choose from after all! Admittedly they’ve played a ton of material I’m not familiar with – I had no idea there was this much either – but I’ve had so much fun watching Electric Six (well, five) do their stuff tonight in Manchester. Dick Valentine’s every bit as much of a comedian as he is a fantastic frontman and there’s not been a dull moment at any point in this set. ‘Dance Commander’ sees almost every pint in the centre of the crowd immediately fly upwards and hit the ceiling maybe a metre and a half above their heads – but despite the now dripping beer from the ceiling, everyone’s going wild. Continuing the trend of playing loads of old stuff that I love, ‘Nuclear War On The Dance Floor’ right towards the end is appreciated as well, even if it is like just 80 seconds long!
Funny, wacky, silly, but consistently energetic from start to finish, Electric Six are still as fantastic as they’ve always been. See you again next year!
- The tour continues in Birmingham tomorrow (Thursday 8 December) then hits Bristol on Friday (9 December), and the Islington Academy on Saturday, finishing at Concorde 2 in Brighton on Sunday (11 December).
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