Shrag Live @ The Lexington
Shrag Live @ The Lexington, London Thursday 15th October, 2010
The official Life! Death! Prizes! Album Launch Party saw Shrag play The Lexington in London last night. Shrag are from Brighton. Two sassy, upfront, confident sexy young girls singing and playing their Casio synths, with three lads on bass, guitar and drums.
Shrag took to the stage smiling and laughing thanking everyone for coming. At first I thought this was a nervous shyness but soon realised all five members were very relaxed and really were just having a fun time.
The live set started with the opening track to the album, A Certain Violence. Homage paid to The B52’s mixed with a packet of 1980’s space dust. The album is spot on, but I was expecting Shrag live to be more shambolic, loose and possibly not so powerful. How wrong I was. The performance was very professional, and the music was very tight.
Shrag mix it up. Twee girly vocals, banshee screams; distorted post-punk and indie pop jangly guitars, throbbing bass, funky guitar and sci-fi squeaky synth on Ghosts Before Breakfast. And every time I hear the spoken vocals of The Habit Creep there’s appoint where I veer off into West End Girls (now there’s a ‘mashup’ waiting to happen!) Shrag may have all the elements of a retro 1980’s indie pop band but they have so much more besides.
The set included tracks from their previous album, a compilation of previously released 7” singles. But not surprisingly, the highlight of the set was a perfect rendition of the very wonderful Rabbit Kids. In between songs the girls mumbled about an old dirty bastard and something to do with trying on t-shirts. The band members were in on the joke and I remember thinking maybe tonight I should keep my dirty thoughts to myself.
Life! Death! Prizes! is one of my favourite albums of the year, Rabbit Kids could well be my favourite single; and seeing Shrag @ The Lexington last night was one of the best gigs I’ve been to in 2010. With the new album and live appearances as good as this, expect to see and hear much more from Shrag in 2011.
1 comment so far
1 Shrag & Standard Fare @ the Lexington, London Friday 4th March | Buzzin Music // Mar 18, 2011 at 5:45 pm
[...] When Shrag took to the stage it seemed the whole room was full of expectancy. Shrag are Helen King (vocals and keyboard), Bob Brown (guitar and vocals), Steph Goodman (keyboard and vocals), Russell Warrior (bass guitar) and Andy Pyne (drums). Here is an indie pop band that has it all, hopefully not at the peak of their powers but certainly on form. But would they deliver a set as good as the last time they played the Lexington? [...]