Tonight
we have in Birmingham one of the 90’s most
beloved indie acts, an act that had major chart
success with numerous songs and albums, a band
that took the world by storm and then slowly faded
away into obscurity. Well this band is Space and
their back, they’ve dusted off their guitars
and have decided to ‘begin again’.
Now as Space are now almost 20 years old with
their main hits coming 17 years ago, so our younger
readers might not know who they are(and our older
readers might not know what happened to them),
but I can tell you that you couldn’t move
for indie music or brit rock back in 1996 with
bands like Catatonia, Suede, The Lighting Seeds
and Space all being at the forefront of a new
music wave that was kicked off with a bang
by Blur and Oasis, this new style of rock was
accessible to the public and made us all have
a break from the normal pop bands that we are
still bombarded with today. It was a refreshing
music scene and Space’s debut album ‘Spiders’
and subsequent album ‘Tin Planet’
where received with great success, they toured
heavily and had planned a follow up album to be
released in 2000, but unfortunately this never
happened, they released a single called ‘Dairy
Of A Wimp’ which didn’t enter the
top 40 and as such the album was pushed back and
eventually never released by the label and Space
had to wait until there contract ended to release
new material. They eventually released a new album
‘Suburban Rock ‘N ‘Roll’
in 2004 6 years after their last album, and as
such, all of their hype and press had gone leaving
them playing small gigs and
feeling pretty deflated after being “screwed
over” by their record label. The band decided
to call it a day, that is until 2011, when they
reformed to play a special homecoming gig in Liverpool,
in which they announced they would be touring
more and making a new album. They are due to release
their new album ‘Attack Of The Mutant 50ft
Kebab’ this year and are doing a UK tour
to promote the album and to show the UK that they
are back and are starting a-fresh, but the big
question is; should I go and see them? And the
answer is a definite YES!
Space
take their time with setting up their stage, as
they have a mass of instruments, including 3 keyboards,
a double bass, a video mixer and all the normal
drums, guitar, mics and bass. This set up time
is fine though as the room full of a mainly people
in their mid 30’s settle in at the bar and
calmly sway to the 60’s hits that blast
through the pa system. Eventually the lights go
dark and the band slowly enter the stage on by
one as the starting sample of ‘Charlie M’
plays over and over until singer Tommy Scott enters
the stage to great applause and the “ooga
chacka’s” kick in and they blast into
the song, all moving back and forth as they play
the song giving a creepy carnival look to the
stage. The have aged, but 3 members are not from
the original line up so you can only tell by looking
at Tommy and keyboardist/sampler Franny Griffiths,
who both still look good but with Tommy now looking
like a weird version of Garry Oldman.
Space
sound good as they rattle out across the room,
their sound is unique and this comes from the
distinct vocals of Tommy and the wonderful samples
and organs that add to the typical instruments.
They continue their set by playing an old song
then a new one, going; ‘Mr Pyscho’
‘She’s In Love With a Boy In a Body
Bag’ ‘Money’ before playing
the title track from their new album ‘Attack
Of The Mutant 50ft Kebab’ to which Tommy
tells the crowd how he loves coming to Birmingham
and how their accent is the best, before pointing
out a sign that’s on the ceiling showing
the name of their new album “which you can’t
really see in this light, but it’s there”.
There new songs are quite different from their
older ones with them having a psychobilly feel
to them, a kind of demented reggae that when you
hear it for the first time you don’t quite
get
what your hearing so you concentrate on the words,
and the words are rather basic in meaning as they
spell out the song to you, but this doesn’t
detract from the song as you find yourself singing
along. Their stage set up adds to the creepiness
of the music, with a black maniquin with a white
mask coving its face, along with a screen in the
back which on certain songs plays videos to accompany
the music. They continue the set with ‘Avenging
Angels’ ‘Crying On The Webcam’
which shows a girl on the screen, holding up cards
with things she’s feeling on them, ‘A
Liddle Biddy Help From Elvis’ ‘Begin
Again’ ‘Fortune Teller’ ‘The
Ballad Of Tom Jones’ before which Tommy
tells the crowd how he hates but loves this song,
as Cerys Matthews appears on screen behind him
to do her parts pre-recorded , as he
keeps getting older yet she still looks just as
young as she used to. After this the second keyboardist
Ryan Clarke comes out from behind the keyboard
to sing a song and as Tommy puts it “To
Steal The Show”, which he doesn’t
as his voice sounds like Johnny Rotten on helium
as he sings a song called Happy Clowns to which
a clown appears on the screen behind and creepy
carnival music is actually played, this is a low
point in the gig for me and it doesn’t get
better straight away as Tommy sings a new song
called, ‘Burn Down The School’ which
he informs the crowd is about a kid called Jimmy
Rodaway who burnt down his school as a teacher
was shagging his missus The song is awful, its
allot noise with no real progression throughout,
and I wasn’t the only one as I overheard
someone in the crowd say “I bet I could
write a better song than this, before this song
ends”.
The mini detour is forgot though as they continue
with classic ‘Female Of The Species’
which sounds as good now as it did 17 years ago,
‘Armageddon’ ‘Neighbourhood’
and ‘Me and You Vs. The World’ wrap
up the set with a high and allows Tommy to come
into the crowd passing the mic to fans to sing
along with the chorus, after which he climbs back
over the barrier and passes a few people a drink
and the band exit the stage. They re-appear a
few moments later to play a more chilled out version
of ‘Dark Clouds’ which morphs into
La Bamba before finishing the set with a relatively
odd choice of ‘Drop Dead’
which has a nice homemade movie on in the background
about a stalker, whilst the band turn up all the
instruments to make it the most distorted and
loud song of the night, they leave the stage with
a bang and the band come out into the crowd to
shake people’s hands and thank them for
coming out.
Tonight has been great overall, Space played a
total of 19 songs with 12 of them being from the
first two albums with no songs played from albums
3 and 4 and with 7 tracks being played from their
new album. It is a good mix and there new album,
does seem quite different from their older tracks,
but it does have its highs (and a few lows), which
when all rounded off makes for a great gig, with
allot of nostalgia and fun. If you ever listened
to Space back in the day then go to one of their
gigs, you’ll not be disappointed, and if
you’re a fan of pyshobilly or creepy carnival
music and have never heard of space then go check
them out, as their new stuff will be write up
your street.
Space 4/5
Review By James Daly
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