You’ve got to relish the irony as singer Joe McGuigan preaches “it’s not always about bigger and better”, whilst Ground Components get full mileage out of the hefty Palace speakers, strobe lighting and smoke machines. Their visceral sound takes-off in the Palace like a cigarette flicked into a can of gasoline.
Joe has been digging in his costume-box, retrieving a white polyester cape, wild wig and gold aviator sunnies for the occasion. The look is Elvis Priestly meets violent electrical storm, but the comic effect is lost on the crowd so Joe hurls his disposable afro into the air and gets down to business, delivering one chaotic and spine tingling tirade after another.
The mix is perfect – every word he says (or screams) is crystal clear amidst the dirge-rock of On Your Living Room Floor. Hands In the Air literally sweats with desperation, while Paxton’s keyboard takes the fore on the disarming We Could Have Been, hinting at a lighter side to the band that doesn’t surface on the Eye for a Brow album. Our Sunshine, a ripping cover of Paul Kelly’s Ned Kelly tribute, should be mandatory listening for recent immigrants to help them cram for John Howard’s citizenship exam.
“Hey, what’s this feeling inside of me?” Joe demands on Stale Thoughts, competing with the jazzed up keyboard in church organ mode. “Is it fulfillment?” The grin involuntarily spreading across my face says yes and it’s no stretch to predict the deliciously unhinged Ground Components will be staking a claim to the main stage on the festival circuit sometime in the not too distant future.
Hard-Fi are an unknown quantity in Australia, but they are nothing if not confident – competing with bands like The Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on price point ($55 a ticket) and commencing ticket sales four months in advance of their tour. I figured their live show must have contributed to the hype in their native England, where they’ve racked up nominations for a load of Brit awards and managed to sell out a five show run at London’s Brixton Academy.
As they take the stage, the amps are unceremoniously turned up to ear blistering. The message is clear, Hard-Fi cater for the audience that wants to feel the vibration from the speakers shaking their boots and shout out every word on the album sleeve.
The sound is what I’d imagine you’d capture on a tape recording of a night out in the lad’s hometown of Staines. Waiting outside the only nightclub in town you can hear the muffled pounding of the disco beat through the wall. It’s been a while between drinks and you’re stamping your feet and complaining about the cold. The lyrics pretty much sum up what happens when the boys are finally let loose inside. Sleazy pick up lines and bathroom blow jobs (Hard To Beat), a fight breaks out (Feltham Is Singing Out) and you’re ejected from the club, passing out in the neighbor’s front yard on the way home (sure to be on album number two).
Play back the recording on high speed and this is what you’ll get – a mix of dub and base, guitar and club beats with plenty of “nah nah nah” and “yeah yeah yeah” choruses. Hard-Fi pick up where Oasis left off, swaggering between stadium rock and dance floor anthems, and threatening to club you to death if you dare answer back to Richard Archer’s Brit-shtick.
The guy next to me asks his girlfriend midway through the set if she’s enjoying the gig. “Yeah,” she replies, looking slightly puzzled. “I’m just trying to tell which songs are which.” She’s not alone. Basically, there’s no way to distinguish one chord or song from another amidst the blaring racket, and Archer’s vocals, lacking any variation in tone or style, give no clues to the mystery.
I can only surmise that Hard-Fi is Brit rock’s hangover from a crop of talented and genuinely exciting bands in 2005. Nominated for the Mercury Music prize, and given a predictably rave review in NME, this is the work of an industry desperately trying to find a Cash Machine. In the process they are mercilessly churning though every town in the UK to dig up while promoting and cross-promoting the next Arctic Monkeys.
The Arctic Monkeys tackle working class drudgery armed with bang-on lyrics and an explosive sound. Hard-Fi manage to turn their experiences into the musical equivalent of menial labour. After the first 30 minutes, I feel like I’ve spent 30 years in West London and desperately need a holiday.
Still, by the time the band delivers Living for the Weekend the crowd (mostly males between 18 and 25) is revved up and air punching. There will always be a place for bands like Hard-fi because, when it comes down to it, music is about relating to common human experiences. A hangover and a shit week at work is a pretty universal one.
