In a music scene where the indie kids rule the roost, The Gavlatrons are a welcome breath of fresh, fun and indulgent air. Instead of lyrics about rehab and breaking up, they write lyrics about robots and girls named Cassandra. They don’t mope behind their fringes, but grin from under their luscious ‘80s locks. They rock, and that’s just what they do. Oh, and they’re from the future as well – can you ask for more?
Just before the curtain lifts a recording of some geezer mumbling about the future plays over the PA. Maybe I’m just deaf but I can’t really here anything but it seems to evoke a reaction from the crowd, and I can’t deny results. They gave an absolutely blistering performance, Johnny Galvatron presence oozing from his boyish features and can make the basic tapping seem as impressive as it was when we first heard it. His energy and charisma pull the band together, and when you watch him prancing around the stage, throwing shapes and posing like Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson, you can’t help but be infected by his energy and the music.
As a band they are solid. Each member plays his part without flaw. Their sound is professional and refined, and while the music may not be the most groundbreaking or original you’ve ever heard, you can’t deny they play it well. And when Johnny proclaims to the crowd, ‘Her name is Cas-san-d-ra,” you can’t help but raise you arm in a camp pose and stomp along to the beat like a flamenco dancer who’s had a few too many.
Johnny’s On TV and She’s In Love were rock solid. When We Were Kids showed Johnny at his best, delivering hammed up vocals and over top guitar theatrics as the crowd got amongst it, showing us all just how well you can dance in five-inch stilettos and painted-on-jeans.
They closed with Robots Are Cool, and from the crowd’s reaction you would be forgiving for thinking they were launching their second album, not touring in support of an EP. The opening synth line, straight from an arcade game, fits perfectly over the Top Gun-esque guitar tapping and over-the-top vocals, as the crowd echoed the lyrics, “have you seen this kid-ah, he’s gonna change the world…inside computer games, he’s gonna change the world, inside computer games.”
The song was unfortunately interrupted as some highly intoxicated fool dressed in a wife beater and blond mullet wig decided to bum-rush the stage, grabbing the mic and slurring a few incomprehensible comments along the lines of “The Galvatrons… Sydney.” Johnny, obviously less than impressed with this turn of events, battled trough the song, delivering a nipple tickling guitar solo. Regardless of how intrusive (if admittedly funny) the fool was, the band still shone and delivered an impressive finale.
These boys from Melbourne have really stumbled onto to something ingenious in their music, something innate. It’s cheesy but unlike The Darkness it seems genuine. Johnny plays with the conviction of a young Van Halen, and in his mind he’s already a star, sent from the future to save us all. Thanks Johnny.
But The Galvatrons were hardly the only stars of the night. Thinking I was going to be late, I had rushed into the Oxford Arts Factory arriving in time to catch some of the support acts.
Now I wasn’t expecting much from The Scientists of Modern Music. I was expecting it to be pretentious indie rubbish, but shave my arse and call me Susan – was I surprised. Sounding like some demented mix of The Presets and Nine Inch Nails, these two guys, dressed in opposing black or white, delivered a titanically powerful set that shifted from dark, crunchy guitars and industrial beats to French house sounding vocoder ballads like Do You Want To Go For A Ride.
The best part though by far was their dance moves. Whenever they weren’t slaving away at synths or other such musical accoutrements they would be busting out wild. I haven’t seen dance moves this enthusiastic since Thailand. They’re energy is electric and I would definitely pay to these guys again.
The next band up were Cassette Kids, who really stole the show in my opinion. The guitarist, who took to the stage in a flannel shirt buttoned to the collar and a hair that looked like he’d just licked a light switch, is the indie Tom Morello. He had enough feedback and delay on his guitar to wake up Thurston Moore and played one handed as he shuffle danced across the stage. The sound he got out of his (incredibly sexy looking) Telecaster was incredible: at times a high pitched synth, then a cat being strangled through distortion, then heavenly soaring reverb. I just want to say that if you’ve never seen these guys, it’s worth going just for the guitarist.
The singer however is the icing on the cake, the icing made of pure cocaine that is. Gorgeous. Passionate. Talented. If you are reading this, marry me. She has the presence of Debbie Harry but somehow reminds more of Roisin Murphy or Alison Goldfrapp. She’s a wild woman with a voice to match and dance moves that would make your mother cry that she’s not a younger woman anymore.
The only criticism that I can possibly think of is that a lot of the songs sound the same. But when the same is this good who really cares? Go see every one of these bands if you get the chance. Buy their CDs as well you lazy download junkies, because if we don’t support these bands, the future may be doomed.
