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You can see Cornershop’s logic. Do what they’ve always done and ignore the accepted way of doing things. When most bands are off round the festival circuit circus and steering clear of the big cities (lack of students, people away on holidays - you see?), Cornershop announce their own headline tour of some big city intimate venues to celebrate their return following a seven year absence. Real whites-of-the-eyes stuff to test the response to the new material, right?
We’ll come to that, but first up are Wythenshawe’s Dirty North. Feted by the likes of The Reverend Jon McClure and Tin Can’s own John Robb, Dirty North trail themselves as a mix up of reggae, rap and hip hop. Visually they’re more Trafford College than Toots & The Maytals, but in Johnny Gregory’s blistering delivery they’ve got the x factor that rises them above all the usual reggae/ska clichés. Their poppier material could see them giving the likes of Jamie T a few sleepless nights, but when they turn through the door marked ‘dub’, as they do on ‘Fresh Bad Track’, they’re an altogether darker proposition. A good, good thing.
So, back to the whites-of-the-eyes, intimate venues thing. For sure, Moho Live is one of those venues best suited to this – one of those dark, low-ceilinged places that you just don’t see enough of in these (insert own mobile network)-sponsored-venue times. But for a gig like this to be a true intimate experience, it needs to be rammed to the rafters with die-hard fans dying to welcome back their band. And there’s the problem. Tonight, Moho Live is playing host to, at the most, 150 people, meaning it’s at best a third full. You can’t help but feel a pang of pity for Cornershop as they take the stage, a band, lest we forget that list number one singles, American arena tours with Oasis and enough critical acclaim to bury most bands in their arsenal.
A long, lolloping jam leads into 2002 single ‘Lessons Learned From Rocky I to Rocky III’ and it’s clear that the Cornershop ship is not a happy one. Frontman Tjinder Singh spends much of the songs motioning frustratedly to his soundman, commenting enigmatically “We’re suffering tonight. Good of you to suffer with us.” ‘Sleep On The Left Side’ from the breakthrough ‘When I Was Born For the 7th Time’ album receives a few shrieks of recognition, but although all the parts are present and correct, you can’t help but feel that Cornershop’s heart isn’t in this tonight. Singh looks, as he will for much of the set, utterly, utterly disinterested. At one point he picks up a book and you wonder whether he really is checking some lyrics or just doing something more interesting instead. What’s also noticeable is how incredibly ‘trad’ a lot of Cornershop’s material can be – 3 chords and long, long guitar solos. So “trad” in fact that, in a set that will last a little over an hour with a final number that lasts a little under twenty minutes, Cornershop will find room for two cover versions. One of which they will play twice. That’s twice. The first version of ‘Norwegian Wood’ lacks the (admittedly essential) sitar, but the outing for Dylan’s ‘The Might Quinn’ does feel rather surplus to requirements.
The rueful smile on Tjinder Singh’s face as the crowd recognises the intro the ‘Brimful Of Asha’ speaks volumes. But if it’s an albatross round their necks, then what an albatross to have – paced somewhere between the tentative original version and the breakneck Fatboy Slim hit remix, for the first time tonight, Cornershop sound and look like they mean it. Having belatedly hit their stride, they follow up with a set-closing ‘6AM Jullander Shere’ which truly is worth the entrance money on its own. It’s long, reeeally long, drawing on its one note bass pulse, sitar drone and siren guitar lines to create an absolutely terrific noise over which Singh intones mantra upon mantra, now transfixed rather than tired. After what might be days, and with the merest of nods, he departs the stage. As a test of new material and a return to the fray, tonight’s clearly been a bit of a non-event for the band. But the last 20 minutes prove that Cornershop were and can again be a special, special band.
Tags: music bands cornershop dirty north moho live matt rynn review 360 degrees
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