ECHOBELLY | LIVE REVIEW
The Globe, Cardiff, Thurs 18 May
Nineties Britpop band Echobelly are back on tour. I had no idea who they were until I saw them featured on a BBC show about Britpop recently. “Girl’s singing reminds me of Debbie Harry,” I thought. After punk and new wave, I didn’t go to as many concerts because I was working two jobs, but I did still try and listen to bands coming from old Blighty: usual suspects like Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Suede, Elastica and my faves, Lush. I can’t understand how I failed to catch Echobelly. I discovered them now, though, so decided to see what I had missed.
The Globe’s crowd was excited to see the band whose last studio album (until this week) was over 10 years ago. Echobelly broke up in 2004 but got back together in 2009, and have a mix of old and new fans if the audience here was anything to go by.
Loved the music: a great mix of pop and indie that included the anthemic likes of We Know Better, Nobody Like You, punkier tunes like Car Fiction and Great Things, their highest-charting single at number 13. Guitarist and founder member Glenn Johansson was fabulous, with some cool Johnny Marr tremolo during new single Hey Hey Hey; I definitely heard bits and pieces from other songs, including the riff from Pump It Up (twice!) and Tears For Fears’ Mad World on Molotov. Still, if the rest of the songs on their new album are as good as the ones they did tonight, they should have a winner on their hands.
Other highlights were the beautiful yet hard-driving guitar noise of the new LP’s title track, Anarchy And Alchemy, and oldie A Map Is Not A Territory, again with more spacey delay/distortion effects. The group (also featuring the very good Oliver McKiernan on bass and drummer Ash Hall) played a short set, just over an hour, and the crowd let out a huge collective groan when they said goodnight. Entering again to loud applause, they did three more songs, ending with the dreamy psych-country Dark Therapy, featuring Johansson’s wonderful slide guitar.
Now why haven’t I mentioned Sonya Madan, their lead singer and other original member? Well, she had all the right moves and was charming, but her vocals were drowned out by the band. Before you say I’m a deaf old cow, I asked a couple of others; they agreed, and even moved farther away from the front, but it was still like I was swimming underwater. The sound guy said after that he had her turned all the way up and couldn’t bring the music down or people would have complained. Madan’s voice, sweet as it is, isn’t, perhaps, the strongest.
Yet their fans didn’t seem to mind, singing along apparently besotted. One in particular kissed Madan’s hand, her smart phone practically in the singer’s face taking selfies. I thought she was going to get up into her pants to get a better view at one point. Enough with the selfies! I had to laugh when the infatuated one went for the setlist, and Madan had to put her foot on it because she wasn’t finished (hey, I needed that to check the tunes I couldn’t hear the lyrics to)! Next time, Echobelly’s fantastic tunes hopefully won’t be lost in translation.
words RHONDA LEE REALI photo KEVIN DAVIES