“I wanted to give away a free blow up vibrator with the album,” says a belly-chuckling charismatic Frances McKee who talks to us with such warmth normally reserved for close friends.
Of course she’s talking about the album which took 21 years to follow debut Dum Dum released in 1989, a year the band perhaps regard with distaste if new song I Hate the 80s is anything to go by.But this is 2010 and their return couldn’t be more fitting with the supposed downfall of indie music.
The intimate affair rouses bopping heads and smiles all around as the scuzzy pop duo share their dirty thoughts and innuendos. Frances shamelessly comments on the pair’s former romantic ties but both satirically poke fun at this with album title Sex with an X.
Add jaunty pop hooks and endearing vocal harmonies and the twosome pretty much pick up where they left off.Frances face is filled with beaming joy as she plays those indie-pop gems from her younger years, including the hypnotic Rory Rides Me Raw and the subdued No Hope with its Lou Reed stylings.
But musically the new songs barely stand out and it’s those three classics covered by Kurt Cobain which inevitably receive the most appreciation. But as Eugene introduces Jesus Don’t Want Me For A Sunbeam the crowd stand alarmingly still as if four horsemen are on stage signalling the end of time.
Luckily Frances perks up the mood with her inane take on Molly’s Lips but she makes it quite clear she expects more enthusiasm.She makes a member of support act Haight Ashbury parp a toy horn in the most frivolous of places that it effortlessly produces muffled laughs. The perfect way to show that a dose of Scottish charm is all you need to win over our affections.
After mocking the laughable opaqueness of an encore they walk off for a matter of seconds before asking us what we want to hear, despite the crowd having already shouted suggestions all night. It’s soon decided we hear their eclectic version of You’re Not A Man followed by The Stooge’s-esque Dum Dum which finally brings out the dancer in us all.
Here’s to hoping we’ll hear more in the next 20 years.
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