Brothers and sisters, believe the hype: it all adds up

THE MAGIC NUMBERS / THE PIPETTES, 15TH MAY 2005, BIRMINGHAM ACADEMY

And so an inexcusable two month lapse since my last live music experience is brought to an end.

Yet even that drought, stretching back to early March, isn't enough to get me scampering back from Nottingham in time to catch first support act, the appropriately named Absentee.

So my first taste of live goodness after the stupid self-imposed diet comes courtesy of The Pipettes, three rather charming young ladies in polka dot dresses shimmying and cooing along to the sounds kicked out by a backing band clad in burgundy tank tops. Hailing from - where else? - Brighton, The Pipettes situate themselves neatly within the historical context of Spector-produced pop, 50s girl groups, doo-wop and Motown on their website, and their music bears this out.

I'm guessing the moniker is the girls' way of claiming to be the cutesy diminutive offspring of The Pips, but it might just as well refer to the item of scientific apparatus, as that, like most of their songs, takes the listener back to school and the first flushes of lust and romantic entanglements of youth. It's the new Pretty In Black style Raveonettes doing the theme music from 'Grease' - bubblegum innocence on the surface but sexual attractions and tensions bubbling along underneath.

But the stumbling block, for me, is that this faux naivety is just that - underneath, they're the sort of sharply self-conscious post-feminist concept band Le Tigre's Kathleen Hanna would love. Nothing wrong with that, perhaps, but they're SO knowing, and the songs aren't quite strong enough to distract me from that fact, so I probably won't be buying their records. Let's just say that a large part of their appeal is visual, skin-deep.

If, as expected on this showing, headliners The Magic Numbers make it big, it won't be because of anything as superficial as image. Photogenic they ain't, but talented they most certainly are.

This is just one of the reasons why they're such a refreshing change from the Kasabians and Braverys clogging up the pages of the music press. Another is the fact that they probably wouldn't know a Joy Division or Duran Duran record if slapped about their ample chops with it.

My first thought on seeing bearded man-mountain vocalist / guitarist Romeo is of My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James, a huge long-haired bear of a man who deceptively looks like an escapee from a primitive metal band but possesses the sweetest of voices.

And in truth, Romeo's band - he is backed by his sister Michele on bass, and another brother-sister combo of Sean and Angela on drums and percussion / melodica respectively - don't sound a million miles away from My Morning Jacket and their dusky country blues, though The Magic Numbers have less of a stoner rock sensibility and a better developed sense of when to bring songs to heel and to an end. They also have more strings to their bow than their American counterparts, switching easily between sumptuous slow torch songs ('Hymn To Her', 'Wheels On Fire') and upbeat power pop tunes (forthcoming much-plugged single 'Forever Lost'), though perhaps dwelling a little too much on the former.

"Classic songwriting" is an epithet I often turn my nose up at, but it's applicable in a non-pejorative sense to what The Magic Numbers do. Several tracks sound like you must have heard them before, without at the same time slavishly aping any distinctive predecessors.

Judging by the rapturous response they receive here, one which visibly bowls them over, and the prospect of a Glastonbury appearance on the horizon (sadly not outdoors in the sun but on the John Peel Stage), they could well take this summer by storm.

Link:

Kenny's assessment of the gig