The Faint - London ULU - 5th April
Gigs // Steve // 11th April 2003
Not for me propping up the bar trying to look cool. I was down the front pogoing and roaring like a twat. Like a twat.
Looking back, I am sure that if could have seen myself jumping around, I would have thought I was a prick, but that's how good The Faint were. I lost myself in it entirely. My sister had only heard a couple of things by them before, and she was down the front losing it to "Call call" with the rest of us.
We last saw them on the tiny stage at the Charlotte in Leicester towards the end of last year, with Schneider TM and Radio 4. The Faint were by far the best then, outdoing the supposed headliners Radio 4 for sheer energy and bloody good pop tunes.
Now that "Danse Macabre" has finally come out in the UK, The Faint return with additional video projections and a greater confidence about them. They also appear to not need to actually play their instruments, and instead just dance about with them, flinging their fashionable haircuts about. Dancing behind a keyboard is usually hideously embarrassing, but Jacob Thiele appears to pull it off. He does this painful looking thing where he leans back and touches the floor, then uses his hands to spring back up again...
The only real problem was Todd Baechle's voice, which on the night was so covered in echo and effects that it was occasionally lost, and the inbetween talking bits led everyone to say "you what?"
Still, they are more marvellous than anything at the moment, and given this they really should be huge. Although they don't really sound like Ladytron, the thing they have in common is that they have a load of absolutely huge 80s influenced pop tunes that won't make any impression on the charts. Hope they prove me wrong.
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