Melbourne four-piece, British India are on the verge of living the dream. They’re incredibly young, they’re from a big, big city, they’re getting repeat airplay on Triple JJJ, (and a bit on NOVA too I hear) and they’re selling out shows across this fair land. Throw in a new record, where the sound shines so much in reflects and image of the band on the wall behind you and you have a solid stab at mainstream popularity. They’ve got overly manicured shaggy’ hair and a sense of dress style that points them more towards the skate park than the indie trappings of the Rocket Bar, where they came after the gig, but sound somewhere in between. Their name belies their act. They ignore politics and the finer subtleties of those things that piss us off in society and just sing big songs, with big hooks, about girls and women that go for only brief periods of time. They seem perfectly geared towards the low attention spans and greed and hunger for cheap, quick hooks and chants that typify the typical Australian indie kid. No wonder, they’re crossing over.
By now you’re probably thinking that I feel patronisingly towards British India, no way. They are impressive. Their new record is BIG. It fills the room with fat bass lines drilling away for ever, singing that can’t decide if its Emo or Cedric from At The Drive In, so instead it settles in-between, and two guitars that don’t ever want you to know that there is more than one playing at any one time. Their first record was under-produced. Guillotine was murky, angry and a little edgy. Interesting hooks seemed to be consciously pushed behind Garage production. Thieves is the total opposite, as I said it sounds huge. Their hooks are so much clearer, their songs are the new focal point and every individual note is laid out for you to dance around. What they’re talking about hasn’t changed much, how their songs are written haven’t either. But now they’re arena-rock ready. They’ve been designed and moulded to hit it big. Harry Vanda and his team have obviously heard a riff or two and thought the gloss potential was gigantic. And on Thieves gloss=gold.
So what happens live? Songs don’t loss their power just like that on stage. The Gov is an awesome place not just to stand and watch, but more so to stand and hear. The sound isn’t hard to master and the potential is endless for however you want your songs to reverberate through the gardens. On record British India sound like the brash, young indie kids they are. Live, they go for something more, they crank up the distortion (just a little) to get harder and heavier for the sake of all the flying kids around, a lot of them for some reason wearing odd looking hats. They are tight, but they’re not as tight as on record (no surprise for any band), but that is indie-dance-pop. You gotta be rock solid. Guitar notes, drum hits and bass lines should all poke-out individually towards creating any one of a number of different beats for the fashion home-less to dance too. But they TRIED hard to be bigger and noisier and angrier. Why? They could of just bashed out a pre-recording rehearsal of their songs and that may have sounded better. In time prior to the gig, I was surprised when I realised I liked songs like Black and White Radio, God Is Dead, Meet The Kids, Tie Up My Hands and I Said I’m Sorry. But at The Gov I couldn’t lose myself in the songs as much as on my IPod or my now slowly dying stereo. Mostly what I saw was wavy, ‘Fructised’ hair consistently pouncing up and down the faces of four not so happy looking dudes.
It seems callous to suggest that another cause for British India’s sound and attitude not coming off was the support band on before them. Dead Video, man, seemed like they were born and raised at the Gov. Kelly the lead singer came on in a Jimi Hendrix T-Shirt and a leather jacket and I thought “Oh Shit, these guys better sound good, rock ‘n’ roll good, if he’s decided to dress like that” and man they were. With no nonsense, no bullshit, just 2 minute pure rock-n roll songs, me and my mate were enraptured. They where more distorted than British India, they were louder, looked older, and even though I’d never heard their music before I felt I recognised it more than the songs of the main attraction. Maybe it was the horrible affliction of comparison that brought B India lower that night, I can’t say. I worry as to why a band as tight and professional and as fuck-off-rock-’n’-roll as Dead Video will struggle to get airplay when British India find it so easy (Take nothing away from the India, they right a damn fine song and have wicked records).
Some bands make a conscious effort live to divorce themselves from their recorded sound. And it can work brilliantly. But it’s a gamble that comes more with experience than experimentation. British India will find this with growing up and gigging more, something they’ll do naturally and wont have to worry about too much as its happening.
So I came excited, thinking I’d find some solace in some slightly less than generic indie pop on a cold Friday night at The Gov. And if it wasn’t for Dead Video I would of felt like my time would of been well-spent staying at home with a double-shot of Thieves and Guillotine. British India will be big, they’re too talented not to, but wait until they play at The Gov when they’ve got a better idea of its potential, not when they are under the false impression that they’re at some backwater dive where no-one cares about your sound. When they play more like their record sound, they’ll be wicked. It’s coming, just not yet.
