Soho Dolls, Vanilla Nightmare & some other band @ ‘The Run Off’, Cobarna, Stevenage, Mon 25th April 2005

Jeepers! It’s a gig in my own hometown!

It should be no secret to visitors of this site that Hertfordshire has quite a bustling music scene. Somehow, the market towns, quaint villages and Garden Cities of this county throw up a great variety of bands, regularly making inroads to the self-styled music capital of London. But my own hometown has been lacking in live music for a few years now, pubs and one summer festival aside, so credit to new promoters ‘the Run Off’ for setting themselves up a couple of months ago.

The Run Off’s monthly night is held in the not-so-stylish environs of Cobarna’s bar and nightclub, of the Plaza, in the New Town Centre. The bands play in front of a window which looks out onto the Matalan car park. The logo of a cut-price clothes store is hardly the best backdrop for a good rock band, but I guess one must make do with what’s available. Unfortunately, even one overpriced beer can hardly soften the prospect of such a poor performance space if the performers are comparably cheap. For example, the type of prototype band that play ‘townie rock’. This nascent genre is known by its wish to cover as many musical styles as possible, in an effort to fit in enough licks and poses to create a good impression. These bands tend to combine endless riffs of no substance, and shouts apparently about nothing. The opening act tonight, Grimly Fiendish, cover a song by rip-off merchants in their own right, Jet! A detour into Chili-Peppers-lite ‘funk’! A grand finale of one interminable blues jam! This is the type of band who make me want to get on stage and play an instrument of my own; it’s not the good bands that inspire me, because I’m happy enough to let them do their own thing, but this kind of band is so unoriginal that it just makes me angry.

Credit where credit’s due: the Fiendish guy can sing, the band have rhythm, and there is a market for such stuff. Curse my critical faculties! If only I could loosen up, I could dance to everything under the sun and look more of a fool than I already do!

Midway through another overpriced beer, and Vanilla Nightmare take the stage. Last time I saw them, I felt this band weren’t quite there, but now they do seem closer to ‘getting there’, wherever ‘there’ might be. More discernible songs, along with a use of the stage-as-space that would put some threatrical actors to shame, make for an impressive set. I don’t know who they could be compared to, but their energy is so infectious that the critic just wants to dance (I’m sure it wasn’t merely the beer). Stop-start three-piece chaos reminds me only of the London band Monkey Boy. It’s low-down garage-rock in style, but played around with like kids do in a playground, instead of the scenester reality of jaded addicts in a bedsit. Well-timed bursts of mayhem are mixed with tense little snippets of tunes; the dual-vocal thing is coming on, too, all sounding both suitably raw and – crucially- a little more rehearsed. It's also good to hear local-accented garage, instead of wannabe American punks. In approval, I shake my shaggy mane like a crazy madman.

After Vanilla Nightmare - and after the beer - the second most impressive sight of the night was the length of trough in the Gents'. I wasn't too taken with the headline band, Soho Dolls. With a couple of singles under their belts - ‘Stripper’ and ‘Prince Harry’ - and a bit of media attention, they seem to be the latest thing on the scene. Personally I'm sick of this posey synth-pop (My Favorite-style shy synth-pop is another matter) and after one burst of nothing much, the quartet succumb to technical difficulties. I stick around for the start of 'Weekender', another electronic-backed pout, but feel it's not really worth it. What's so good about Soho, anyway? There's enough going on in North Herts... I pass on the chance to dance to indie anthems in my own hometown, and call it a night. At least I don’t have far to walk home!

Not a bad night, then, but it’s obvious that there is enough talent in the bands that regularly gig in Hitchin and in Welwyn Garden City to keep a monthly night going for a long time, so I don’t know why these promoters have instead booked unreliable out-of-towners and untried local chancers. Perhaps they just feel that they want to do something different to the venues in other towns, but the very act of putting on original bands in Stevenage is ‘different’ enough already. "Join the movement!" as they say...

previous Vanilla Nightmare review / www.therunoff.com

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