ADORABLE
NEWPORT THE LENGENDARY TJ'S
PIOTR FIJALKOWSKY, Adorable's main man, is one lippy self-publicist who should button his big mouth. Because with every obnoxious group advertisement and insolent declaration of: "We're the best band in the world" (see every Adorable interview to date) he alienates more and more prospective fans. And why? Because inevitably, fans prefer to seek out and embrace their own rock heroes. Cocky frontment should be disembowelled to the tune of their own records.
Offstage, the Coventry four-piece are friendlier than a lonely puppy, which suggest their onstage arrogance is as fake as Linka McCartney's fur coat. Last night we were in Reading. The gig was cancelled when the house PA blew up, which led to an Impromptu meeting in a nearby alehouse. The Piotr who chatted congenially about the Pope, his lapsed Catholicism and his fear of a particularly obsessive female fan, is not the same Piotr who walks on stage. In Newport tonight dressed like Marty Hopkirk (Deceased), whiter than white, pristine and angelic. But he's dragging behind him a stage persona larger than a blow-up of Mick Jagger's lips.
Tonight Adorable are superb, the best I've ever seen them, pre- or post-Creationsigning. The fact that they also exude a quite confidence should save them from stumbling over themselves in the rent-a-gob war.
Appartently - so TJ's promoter informs me - a Newport crowd is a hard one to please. A couple in front are having fully-dressed sex, they look happy enough. And even their uninhibited desire won't detract attention away from the stage tonight, not least whilst four young boys are exploiting themselves so passionately and fervently.
Two Piotr clones are leaping about in front of their mentor; In between them stands the club owner. An enoruous middle-agedItalian man who has taken it upon himself to protect the band and act as stage security; three songs in and he's pogoing with the best of them. Vibrant feedback spiked with mid''80s influence is obviously his thing.
Adorable have tempered aspirations to sound like The Chamelons and Echo and the Bunnymen. And if they ever lack inspiration they could always become a discening fragglepop band.
Opener 'Glorious' is totally majestic, with Piotr's provacative and imposing vocals racing ahead of exquisite volatility. 'Crash Site', with it's beautifully defeatist suicide theme, has him thrusting his arm towards the heavens crying "The only way out". New single 'I'll Be Your Saint' is an honest appraisal of tonight's image and 'Sunshine Smile' is the key link mid-set.
Concluding with the feisty 'Sistine Chapel Ceiling', Piotr stumbles offstage and staggers blindly through the crowd to the dressing room. no encore. As the audience begin to leave, the huge Italian boss lumbers towards the band and holds out hi shuge, sweating arms. Embracing them all he confides: "I had Nivana here three years ago and you were much better."
What a charmer.
Gina Morris
|