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Saint Jude’s Infirmary
Glasgow
Stereo ‘Dolly
Mixtures’ Night – 20/05/05
Playing at ‘Dolly Mixture’, a night that gives away free sweets and
heralds the success of females in music, St. Jude’s Infirmary rolled into
Glasgow to win over a crowd buoyed by alcohol and e-numbers.
Opening track ‘Montreal’ has been re-worked, becoming a more introspective,
reflective song as opposed to its previous pop incarnation. The new version works
well as an introduction to the set. The song also contains fantastic lyrics,
conjuring up images of your favourite place and the feeling of endless exploration
and awe. This is not a band to be confused with your standard run-of-the-mill
indie breakthrough act.
Musically, the band carries many influences from 60s pop, 70s swagger and 80s
fuzz but rarely seem constrained by any expectations of what they should be.
The bass almost strolls through the songs, at times underpinning the tracks at
others sounding as though it came in from a different song. Either way, there
is always an air of confidence that it knows exactly what it should be doing.
If that wasn’t enough, the lilting contrasting vocals of Emma and Ashley
combine to lift the songs beyond the realms of their contempories.
For new bands, the tricky areas in gigs are often the middle with the crowds’ initial
interest or enthusiasm sometimes ebbing away unless maintained. To their credit,
the band kept a fairly consistent pace and quality throughout the set with ‘St
Jean’ and ‘A million days in Fife’ containing enough confidence
to belie the bands status and send customers to the merchandise stall to buy
the home-made eps on sale.
On nights like this, it can be hard to judge who in the crowd is present for
the band and who is out just for the event. Given that St. Jude’s carry
with them a sense of menace, the dark clothing (Ashley’s summer attire
excepted) the skull and crossbones and the intelligence of the lyrics, it may
appear that St. Jude’s have no interest in winning friends but that would
be wrong. Sometimes bands can come across as too desperate for public affection
but when you’ve got melodies and riffs as plentiful as this band has, there
is no need to go cap in hand to the audience looking for approval. That said,
as the gig wore on, the crowd grew more appreciative and the last song of the
night featured some impromptu dancing at the front of the stage.
The night’s final track, ‘Little Sparta’ is a bewitching upbeat
track that gallops to the end with a jaggy, insistent rhythm and a melody that
sounds instantly recognisable but just unique enough to avoid comparison. Given
their style and the music industries continual habit of overlooking quality non-mainstream
acts it may be that Saint Jude’s Infirmary will forever be a critics band
and one that got away. There are many worse fates that could befall a band but
on current showing, they definitely deserve a chance to go as far as their ambitions
and dreams will take them. (Andy Reilly)
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