Hoarse

The Cavern, Exeter, Thursday 14^th October 2004

Anyone who managed to catch the performance by main support band, Days of Worth, might have been slightly unnerved that thisgirl had been upstaged.  Yet by the time the headline act had unaffectedly blazed through their set opener, every single person in the room was embroiled in what was to be one of the most dynamic, and quite simply one of the most astounding, sets unleashed on the Cavern this year.

The entire notion of ‘upstageness’, one promptly came to understand, simply doesn’t hold with thisgirl.  They just don’t allow it.  And what’s more, they probably don’t even know how to allow it even if, for some sick reason, they wanted to. 

Anyhow…

The time that has elapsed between their last real bulk of shows at the beginning of the year and the recording of Uno, their category-shirking second album, has clearly not been wasted.  Every deafening second must have been spent grooming what was already a near-mesmerising live act, coaxing it to almost staggering potency.  The ever-intensifying playful pandemonium, epitomised by little Liam Creamer’s now legendary bass drum handstands, has been blended with a sort of ‘you-should-catch-us-on-a-nine-or-ten’ finesse that belies their experience. 

Even the band themselves looked a bit taken aback by the almighty effect they were having on their fans who, last January, had to be beckoned closer.   

By set-closing time, which was signalled by a particularly unruly rendition of Cartwheels, not a person in the room looked disappointed that no old songs had been played.  And not many bands can get away with that…