Zutons' victory for Valerie
By
David Smyth
16 Jul 2008
This evening's compere sold The Zutons rather short when introducing them as one of the most "interesting" live bands around. Faint praise indeed for the Liverpudlian quintet whose excitable gigs were the initial reason they were elevated from their early status as The Coral's inferior labelmates to Brit and Mercury nominees and serious unit shifters.
They have since proved reliable as the kind of group who can come on mid-afternoon at a festival and rouse the seated punters from their noodleinduced slumber before the really big guns appear. With Dave McCabe's strained bark, Russell Pritchard's weighty bass and Abi Harding's saxophone, more a dance partner than an instrument, they're a good bit groovier than your average indie chancers.
It took Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse, however, to turn their inherent danceability into real gold. By adding a more soulful vocal and still more horns to Zutons single Valerie, they turned it, in McCabe's words, into "one of Them Songs". It's been inescapable over the past 12 months but here its composers stubbornly stuck to their own, slower version.
Inevitably the ecstatic audience response to this track overshadowed the rest of the hour-long show, though the band worked hard to make other songs equal high points, firing up with the frantic double of Zuton Fever and Don't Ever Think (Too Much) and concluding rowdily with You Will You Won't - all favourites from their first album.
New songs struggled to stand out in such hyperactive company, tracks such as Bumbag and rare ballad Put A Little Aside sounding unlikely to survive in the live set beyond the immediate need to plug recent third album You Can Do Anything. Always Right Behind You was far better, a glam rock swinger that proved they don't always need Ronson's help to put ants in your pants.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Morning:
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