Bobby Conn @ Joseph's Well
By Gavin Miller
So it's my first time back at the Well since that whole unfortunate 'incident' when The Stills overran by about six hours or something. I'm hoping things will run a lot smoother tonight, and it's looking good when The Kaiser Chiefs take to the stage at about 8:20ish, and play until around nine. Always full of energy, packed with tunes and brilliant melodies, The Kaiser Chiefs are on fire.
Upbeat and always enjoyable, the Chiefs can now surely go on to make some serious waves in the music industry. I still don't know the titles to any of their songs, but the ones with "oh my god! / I can't believe it / I've never been this far away from home" and the one with "this is the modern way" in them were as usual, fantastic. Now that's entertainment.
And then we come onto The Cribs. Some things were a bit odd about their performance tonight. 1. There are parents everywhere. That's parents. Everywhere. And two: there are cameras everywhere. It's like the set of The Cribs: The Movie with the amount of film cameras, DV cameras, laptops, digital cameras and any other tiny electronic devices to capture the show tonight. They kept moving around a lot too, which was extremely annoying. It was annoying, but not half as annoying as the band themselves.
Caked in that oh so tired 'rock n roll' attitude, the three surly looking guys that make up The Cribs come on stage. One wearing a jacket with no shirt and big glasses, one wearing a skintight sequin waistcoat and the bass player wearing comparatively tame jeans and a t-shirt. The main thing about The Cribs is that you know these guys are going to have the NME creaming their pants over them, but the fact remains that these guys are just boring. A wet dream of The Libertines and the shockingly dull Ordinary Boys (ironic name or what?!) The Cribs are to rock 'n roll what the Chuckle Brothers are to stand up comedy. Boring, self-referential bland-o-rama. Expect the NME to declare them the biggest thing since Jet, and then watch them disappear after 6 months. Everyone was acting like it was a naked Jimi Hendrix on stage, playing some bitchin' psychedelic shit that he's been working on for the past 30 years in rock heaven or something, but the look on my mate (and fellow reviewer) Simon's face wrote a thousand reviews. "Wank" he said as they shuffled off stage.
The main man tonight is Bobby Conn. Having to setup his gear himself (now that's rock 'n roll), and the band's gear by the band, we get an early glimpse of Mr. Robert Robert Conn (his real name) plugging shit in and basically having a rotten time, since all the electrics go after a certain point. Agonizingly long and painful, Bobby finally manages to sort everything out, and away we go. Making the crowd harmonize whilst the bass player gets ready, the main room of Joe's Well sounds like a football match with the coolest team in town playing.
Dressed in fluorescent green flowery shirts, the Glass Gypsies are an odd bunch. Comprised of a large drummer who has pig tails, a bassist who looks exactly like Beck, a keyboard player who looks like an orgasmic giraffe, a guitarist who seriously looks like that British roadie dude from Wayne's World 2 and the unusually attractive Monica on keys and violin. Beat that.
"We're taking over the world!" they scream in unison at one point, making sure everyone, including that chimp in the White House can hear. Bobby's an angry guy. Naming his latest LP 'The Homeland', he's a small torpedo about to fire itself at America's conservative right. Much like the front cover of said album, the band playfully make the sign of the illuminati triangle (as seen on the US $1 bill) with their hands all night, waving them all over the place. Big Brother, or in this case Small Bobby, is always watching...
Moving onto 'Home Sweet Home', Bob jumps into the crowd, meeting people who've come to see this show. He hugs, sings and shakes hands with any number of pissed fans, trying to get that message across by any means necessary. "My garage is very large" he sings at one point, making sure he hasn't lost that sense of humour that gave birth to the idea that on his 33rd Birthday, he'd ascend as the anti-Christ.
"In America, if we have a problem with an inanimate object, we answer it with guns" says Bobby, clearly agitated. "Your toaster doesn't work. BOOM! Coffee maker? BOOM!" He seems like the only sane American since Michael Moore, but Bobby is also the man who played the Reading Festival in nothing but a string vest and tights.
Conn and his Glass Gypsies are bringing the funk tonight. The band switch effortlessly from high camp funk breaks to ear bleedingly loud guitar riffage. It's metal? Funk? Rock? Who knows, and who gives a shit? No one cares and no one is trying to categorize this. It's fun, intelligent and bloody brilliant. It's entertaining, really enjoyable and unbelievably loud. All things a good gig should be. In short, Bobby Conn & The Glass Gypsies are the very epitome of Rock and Roll. Step back and watch a real band NME.
