SUNFLOWER BEAN / MIYA FOLICK / JESSE JO STARK | LIVE REVIEW
The Globe, Cardiff, Mon 19 Nov
There’s a big queue of bright young things outside The Globe, shivering under the half moon as Jesse Jo Stark can be heard soundchecking, more than half an hour after the door time. The delay doesn’t dampen spirits, but does mean that time is brief to cram in three bands – starting with Jesse Jo, who files onto the stage with the band, descending almost unseen from the balcony.
Six originals and one cover come vamping through the PA: blues noir (I Wish I Was Dead), sultry torch song (Dandelion), Twin Peaks waltz (Mystery) and 60s girl group two-step (Breakfast With Lou) all showcasing their voodoo rockabilly, like The Cramps meets Best Coast. A cover of the lame Bette Davis Eyes is more like smudged eyeliner karaoke, before normal service resumes through Devil On The Phone – menacing bass and tremolo lead guitar backing Jesse Jo’s venomous barbs as she squats and writhes.
Miya Folick and band rock up next, with their orange tops and raspberry bottoms all seeming a little too high concept for a band also said to have started on Tinder. Eyecatching though Miya is, there’s not much to set the pulse racing, aside from Stop Talking – a candy rush of Jr Snr meets Blondie and We Could Be Young, an 80s new wave anthem in the making, with Miya occupied on guitar.
Sunflower Bean have limited time but with a “Let’s do this!” they kick off with the glam stomp of Burn It and still manage to cram in their all-killer-no-filler setlist. Julia Cumming, in her red and black zebra stripe dress, is effervescent throughout and has an irresistible chemistry with the curly-mopped, red-jumpsuited guitarist Nick Kivlen. I Was Home and Tame Impala both hark back to their psych-rock history, with energetic call and response crowd participation added to the former before a mini-moshpit coalesces to a motorik riff-fest. In Tame Impala, homaging Kevin Parker’s band, the futuristic FX pedals slow to a Sabbathian War Pigs-ish jam before Cumming’s bass and Kivlen’s lead guitar tear strips off each other.
There’s pitch-perfect 80s indiepop with jangly guitar and sweet vocals on Twenty Two and Easier Said. Latest single Crisis Fest wouldn’t have been out of place on the last Sheer Mag album, where Cumming’s wiggling hips, hair-shaking and pogoing coaxes the crowd into fistpumping and shouting “No no no!”
The bittersweet I Was A Fool, which first alerted me to this band, sees Cumming’s melancholy vocals contrasting with Kivlen’s vox into the red phone mic: “I was a fool who lost his herd, I’m just a child who can’t keep his word.” Only A Moment is another highpoint, 60s soul with a grunge edge. The line “You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be,” chimes with everybody here, who knows they’ve seen an unmissable performance from a band in the ascendant.
words CHRIS SEAL