Contrary to unpopular mild disbelief The Pandaman isn’t just all about wall-to-wall new bands all the wonderwalling time. Sometimes we go and hang with older acts as well. Or at least othertimes we go and see new bands who remind us a bit of older bands: over at the Dalston Victoria PEDALO peddle a jangly sound which is upright and a bit uptight, like primetime Pavement; at the Lexington in King’s Cross Bristolians LANGKAMER bristle with a slackery intensity which nods at Teenage Fanclub (and bonus top of the pops props for the singing drummer); and the golden olden vibe flourishes further over the Old Blue Last in Old Street where TINA KIT turn out to be four blokes digging out the kind of post-grunge lunging which made people really quite like the gruff intensity of Bivouac back in the day.
One act who are still pretty new but also pretty darned road-hardened is West Country wanderers OCTOBER DRIFT: tough of melody and gritty of guitar, they headline Colours in Hoxton with a crowd spilling out of the door. It’s a frantic affair full of stadium-sized anthems and thunderous rhythms, with added fun provided by singer Kiran Roy performing on top of the bar, on top of the crowd and ultimately in the middle of a hushed and marginally crushed audience.
Away from the London Village hipster crowds life continues at a slightly slower pace. To Diss! In Norfolk! Where we have never knowingly been to a live show before, and we’ve lived fifteen minutes down the railway line for 17 years. The venue is the pristine Corn Hall, the artist is RODDY WOOMBLE – sometime frontman in Idlewild – and the vibe is eerily, sleepily rural, with free car parking for the Coronation bank holiday Monday. Monarchy in the UK ahoy.
It’s a suitably intimate show by one of alt.rock’s more bashful showmen, just him and band cohort Andrew Mitchell together like gentle Celtic soul brothers. There are nudges to Idlewild’s past wilder days mixed with woozy electronics, which means ‘You Held The World In Your Arms’ here comes with some plangent Chris de Burgh piano. There are also some heroically incongruous dance beats which make like the Blue Nile getting gnarly in Philly in ’77. Or as Isle-dweller Roddy describes the noise so apologetically himself, “it’s Hebridean disco”.
Adhering to the local Norfolk vibe they play one especially lovely song which was used to soundtrack the birth of baby weasels on ‘Springwatch’ “I’ve never been to Diss before…it seems nice,” muses the ever-wombling Woomble. “Why are you laughing?”
If the shandy sippers along us are moderately discouraged to hear that Idlewild classique ‘Little Discourage’ is now a fully grown 23 years old then hearing stories about the Boomtown Rats and The Police tussling over looking after number one in 1978 could make an old Pandaman feel positively decrepit. From the genteel surrounds of Diss to the gentle grandeur of the Park Lane Grosvenor House Hotel for the Ivor Novello Awards we go.
After a lengthy euology from old mucker Bob Geldof, who rather impressively talks nonstop for many profanity-strewn minutes and manages not to mention the Boomtown Rats once, old Police man Sting is doing a studious lecture in songwriting, explaining how his lovely acoustic version of ‘Message In A Bottle’ was originally written not on an the back of fag packet but in the back of a ’70s transit van on the motorway. But of course!
In The Pandaman’s own battered transit up to The Horn in St Albans, where Northern Irish rocksters ASH are playing an intimate comeback / underplay / warm-up gig which local grown-ups are telling us is the fastest selling show in the history of the esteemed venue . Ash are perfect for the Pandaman’s somewhat loose-limbed old-versus-new indiepop paradox because they’ve been around for three decades but will always be cheeky little tykes to a certain generation, even though they all now have cheeky little tykes of their own.
There’s a brand new album on the way but tonight is the night for bright old glories and ever-youthful shining lights: a kicking ‘Kung Fu’, a frothing ‘Girl From Mars’ and a suitably brisk ‘Burn Baby Burn’ seal the live deal. That new record is going to be called ‘Race The Night’. Let’s help the aged get to that finish line…
THE PANDAMAN’S 2023 TOTAL: 184
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