Boy Kill Boy
Cambridge Soul Tree, NOvember 2005

It's always nice when a band strut around the place with "the next big thing" tag strapped to their backs like a dirty great big neon "kick me"
sign. So it was with great glee that I pootled off to The Soul Tree to see if Boy Kills Boy would be the latest no-hopers to fall on their collective
swords.

The night started promisingly. While the venue is probably the nicest space in Cambridge, it was freezing cold and as the first support band came on there was harldy anyone there - all set up for a comically disastrous evening. I don't know which of the support bands was which, but frankly it doesn't matter. Both played uninspiring sets that were forgotten long before I left for home, and while there were plenty of good musicians on stage, no one had a bean of originality or spark of genius. Pleasing enough to the ear, but plod plod plod.

And then came Boy Kill Boy. Wandering onto the stage looking like a cross between The Ramones and The Bay City Rollers, they treated a half empty
room like it was Wembley Stadium (God rest its soul). Why doesn't every band do this? The attitude from many so-called enrtertainers to a low turn out is insulting - and stupid. There might be just one man and his dog in the crowd, but what if the one man is the next Alan McGee or Tony Wilson (and who knows - the dog might be the next Littlest Hobo)?

But I digress. Its no wonder that NME like this lot - the former inkie have been on a bit of a run recently, with the bands from this year's NME tour - especially Bloc Party and the Kaiser Chiefs - becoming stars after being championed in their pages. So it was no real surprise that Boy Kills Boy had a fat dollop of both in their fun and energetic armoury, plus a bit of Supergrass' playfulness. With a singer that looks like the mental mulleted one out of the Police Academy films and a bass player who did a demented version of the Shadows walk for the entire evening, they did something so many others forget - they entertained. And the songs were well-crafted pop
nougats too.

So my hopes of writing oodles of invective about NME just building them up to knock them down, or bigging up bands who they drink with, or because
they're sleeping with their PR bird, were blown out of the water. For now.

But I'll be back.

Damn you Boy Kill Boy - damn you to hell. But come back soon.

Chris Marling
Pic Carina Jirsch

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