London, England, U.K. - June 29, 2001
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playlouder.com
at Brixton Academy
by Sara Bee
What a very magnificent slovenly noise. Echoes like the Grand Canyon. A cockily crowing chorus or two. A supermodel in frayed hippy gear with a spliff in her lips and something viscous in her hair. You'll be the Dandy Warhols, then? Oh yeah. Hi. Once renowned for shambolic sets to shame Damon Gough, the Dandys have lain in the musical bath for a long long time and their sets are now shrunk to such a stunningly tight fit you can only gawp. A psychedelic thing swirls on screens above them - can psychedelic things do anything else? It sums up their predictability, their own world of repeated gestures. Works like a champ. The drums are amazing, stomping the lush chords and Courtney's mooching vocals like they're bare feet treading grapes. Courtney Taylor - self-proclaimed "fucking rock machine" - has no right to look that sexy. He's got a haircut that Clint Boon would have dismissed in 1990 as "too pudding bowl". But he gets his shirt off and calmly leans back and strums under the green and blue lights, and he looks like an angular, sneery Adonis. He drawls. It's what he does. Keyboardist Zia remains a total icon. Not tall, not skinny, not striking, but she leaves most women in bands at present in the shade with her huge don't-give-a-fuck-less presence. She allows a tambourine intermittent contact with one denim'd thigh. The tambourine can feel itself developing a problem.
The songs melt into each other like the hours of all the best nights. 'Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth' sags a little in the middle, but it dares you to sniff at its dumb simplicity. Dumb music made by clever people. It's what they're about - fit minds that can't be arsed to stretch, good brains that know being a waster is no more of a waste than being a hard-slogging cog in the machine. It seems appropriate to spark out on the floor and spark up, with the we've-got-it-all yelps of 'Get Off' raining down on you. They have two and a half songs, if you're brutally honest, but what songs. 'Every Day Should Be A Holiday' pounds into your head with insolent euphoria, and the existence of the Dandys is justified again. It doesn't have to mean any more than this. Majestic, post-grunge, even in their dark and nearly poignant moments post-gothic, but they're not post-modern cos there's nothing the world can teach them. It's pedestrian to an extent, but it all depends what road you're walking down. There's only one thing to do at a time like this. Strut.
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