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After sitting through a band whose concept of a live performance is to
explain, in depth, the literary and philosophical background to each song,
the plastic fantastic skin-deep shallowness of The Modern comes as a
much-needed refreshing blast. This is a band that looks good, have a sound
that couldn't be more now and what's best is that they know it. Arrogance
can be a very attractive quality in a band, and The Modern have it in
spades.
It might just be a small bar in the dark heart of New Cross, but it's a
home town gig for the band and they give it the full treatment with
uniforms, compere, cheekbones and attendant Gimp all present and correct,
not that you can imagine they know how to do it any differently. Launching
into their current single Suburban Culture, it retains all of its electro
pop sheen in a live setting, the zeitgeist riding mix of Visage,
The Human League and the Cure enhanced by a performance worthy
of the description.
With two perfectly pouting front men performing like a cross between
David Byrne and Phil Oakey, and a Marilyn Monroe down the Torture Garden
look-alike front of stage, there's plenty to keep the eye occupied, and
that's before a rubber spiked gimp suit wearing fellow begins to writhe to
the music. It's a show almost as polished as the music, and it's been my
pleasure and pain over the last few years to witness to a lot of bands that
fall into the synth-pop, electroclash genre. The Modern are definitely up
their amongst the best I've seen.
Where they do fall down, though, at least on the basis of this show, is a
lack of material. Perhaps it was just a lack of time or a trick to keep
people wanting more, but when your entire show is shorter than one of the
support band interminably long introductions then it's hard to judge whether
the band have more than their, admittedly impressive, one or two tricks.
But, having said that, I'd rather a band kept it short and sweet than out staying
their welcome, and after five sweet slices of synthpop, The Modern leave the
stage in the fine style they entered it. More suited to guesting in
clubs than headlining their own gigs at the moment, The Modern are still an
exciting prospect and definitely ones to watch over the next few months.
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