Oxford Town Hall – 16/12/03As soon as the first chords of opener ‘Naked Pictures’ fill the incongruous setting of the normally decorous town hall, you know it’s going to be a great night. Most of the crowd dance or mosh madly to the rocking guitars, and barring a couple of the slower numbers, the pace doesn’t let up, reaching fever pitch with the ones everyone came to see. For a band that will notch up almost two hundred shows for the year, they display remarkable verve: frontman Dick Valentine doesn’t move around, or say much for that matter, but he clearly gives it his all and delivers a fine, impassioned performance. The famous cue to solo is obeyed enthusiastically and self indulgently by Johnny Na$hinal, which is really what you’d hope for from this lot. The Colonel, another guitarist, looks the part in his Dance Commander hat, in front of the huge shiny Electric Six logo. The band work through the whole of their album “Fire”, a couple of Bsides, and one new track. Whilst the crowd is by no means restless through the meat-n-potatoes of the album tracks, there are a few calls for the big ones, and ‘Dance Commander’, ‘Danger! High Voltage’ and ‘Gay Bar’ (was there another band that released three such addictive singles in 2003?) are duly aired and sung along to word for word.Of course the jewel in the crown is ‘Gay Bar’ itself, which they have at last learnt to play second-last in the set, perhaps remembering the massexodus at Reading. Despite featuring the dubious thrill of overweight middle- aged blokes bashing into you screaming “[they’ve] got something to put in you,” it’s incredible live, especially with the teasing pause they add tonight between the second and third verses. Kids, students, old rockers: they’re all out this evening for the zany camp and tongue-in-cheek strutting rock postures of Electric Six. Few will have left disappointed.Archive: 0th week HT2004
