Live Review of
ArtBrut & Neils Children,

Sunday 6th March,Concorde 2, Brighton,

Two London centric bands venture out of the capital to play Brighton, funnily enough it's often described as London by the Sea.

Neils Children open the nights proceedings and we are treated to a healthy mixture of new material and old favourites, the most memorable being 'trying to be someone else for free' and 'how does it feel now your on your own?'

There's always been a strong Cure influence in Neils Children and perhaps this is heightened in their live show, maybe it's something to do with the dark anger and alienation all wrapped into little 3 minute bursts of spiky post punk. Singer John Lingers jagged movements across stage and sneer reminds of John Lydon, echo laden guitars, driving bass and pummelling drums combine to make an angular post punk PIL-esq racket.

Confetti gets thrown around at the front near the end of the set, not that many people notice as everyone's engrossed by what's going on in front of them. 'I hate models' ends the set and it's the perfect way to close as it sums up all that's wrong as well as all that's right with Neils Children.

pic from www.underexposed.org.uk

Neils Children leave the stage briefly, only to reappear this time joined
onstage by Eddie Argos who lends his vocals to one song before both depart.

Though the Concorde 2's not an extremely large venue, capacity being little over 350, it's the largest on this tour. To be fair it's still probably slightly too large for Art Brut and it shows; it's a Sunday, the venue is half empty and you get the impression that both the bands would rather be playing in a smaller and more intimate venue that was bursting at the seams.

Eddie Argos bustles on to the stage like one of those embarrassing and slightly drunk relatives you find at family gatherings, particularly weddings.

Initial reaction from the crowd was cold at first, this was due to the set being full of songs most people had barely heard coupled with a bad sound mix that made it difficult to both make out and hear the vocals.

We were later taken on an audio trip around the Tate Modern, most of the youngish crowd who were also probably NME readers looked confused by this and had probably never heard of either Abstract Minalism, The Tate Modern or Andy Warhol and therefore didn't really understand what was going on.

The audience did warm to Artbrut as the set progressed though, especially when better known songs like 'Bad weekend' and forthcoming single 'Emily Kane' were played with 'Formed a Band' receiving the best reception of the night even causing a bit of moshing at the front.


Pic - Andrew Kendall

Artbrut than briefly leave the stage only for Neils Children to return the favour and join Artbrut and a few more friends on stage for the encore, which was quite obviously going to be 'Top of the Pops' Artbrut Top of the Pop's, Neils Children Top of the Pops. Everybody Top of the Pops.


By Nathan Westley