Music Go Music – ICA, London 22/09/09

02 October 2009, 09:54 | Written by Adam Elmahdi

(Live)

At times tonight I felt like Marty McFly, teleported thirty years into a past I never knew.

Whilst most bands are busy leaping onto the 80’s revivalist bandwagon, Music Go Music decided to draw their inspiration from (or shamelessly plunder, depending on your point of view) the halcyon days of the mid-1970’s. And to that end they certainly didn’t pull any stops- backing singers shake-shake-shakin’ their tambourines, costumes stolen straight from Saturday Night Fever, the stage bookended by a giant golden eye-mask and egg-timer. It sure wasn’t going to be a show where subtlety was going to have any say so- and frankly, it didn’t need to.

At the centre of this orgy of relentless camp was Merideth Metcalf, a perfectly retro front woman for this perfectly retro band. A world away from the imperious ice-maidens and airbrushed FHM-fodder that populate most contemporary pop acts, she’s the epitome of the charmingly gawky girl-next-door type, a 70’s prom queen given her chance to shine. She immediately commands attention by with some gloriously operatic wailing during the intro to ‘I Walk Alone’, setting the tone for an hour of the kind of straight-out, no-holds-barred pop genius that’d do ABBA proud. You’d be hard pressed to find an iota of originality throughout their entire set, but with tunes catchier than swine flu and a radiant performance from Ms. Metcalf it just isn’t an issue as long as you allow yourself to be swept up in the day-glo joyousness of it all. The highlight is naturally the dazzling ten-minute disco epic ‘Warm In The Shadows’ (watch the video below), which for some reason always puts me in mind of the theme tune for the Raccoons- the perfect summation of everything Music Go Music are about, it would have been the ideal note to wrap things up on. But having stuck ardently to the album playlist throughout, they actually finished on the cheesy Carpenters-lite country folk of ‘Goodbye, Everybody’ which whilst pleasant, was somewhat of an anti-climax. Nonetheless, there’s few gigs this year that have had me grinning ear-to-ear as consistently as this one- if these guys get on the festival circuit next year (or 1979, either’s good) then the world will be their oyster.

http://vimeo.com/5956868