Gig and Band of the Year - The Vaccines, KCSLU, Sat 29th Jan 2011

I have a gig review for The Vaccines at The Flowerpot from October 2010 blu-tacked to my wall. The enlarged caption quote reads “Their noise is a sleek yet worldy bop that mines genius from its simplicity”. I remember it as the most excited yet real review I’ve read to date. It’s common knowledge that NME hype a lot of bands. As a huge lover of all things quintessentially “indie” I agree mostly that the majority of mentioned bands are, yeah pretty decent, but not exactly saving the world.

There’s nothing forced in this review the caption reads from, no hyping a band just to hype, the review stating clearly the bands influences and peers while also telling exactly what the band could be and need to improve upon. How many times does a writer go as bold as to say ”____ are your latest indie rock sensations - no contest”? The writer built and built the review while keeping the telling of the music fast and energetic, as the band are, and he reeled off bands NME have hyped previously - Girls, Surfer Blood and The Drums (who they did hail at one point as “the band to save music”) but depicting just how The Vaccines do it so much better. The right amounts of Jesus and Mary Chain, The Beach Boys and Ramones? Sounds good to me. I for one was excited after such a promising recommendation. I’d heard the name a few times but reading this review was my first real glimpse of The Vaccines, from a writer more excited about a band than I could ever remember reading.

Shortly after they performed on Later… and this was what did it for me, the seeing to the believing of the hype. As the first notes of Wreckin Bar were played the lighting remained dark. A shaggy haired frontman jumped up and down as if to psyche himself up. An attractive curly haired guitarist held his gaze with the camera. A boy with long blonde hair never moved his eyes from the floor. The crashing fire ball of energy that this song become was over before it had begun…what just happened? Before long Justin’s voice was so deep and echoey onIf You Wanna that the sadness, brutal honesty and simplicity of the words won me over. There’s a definite sadness in Justin’s eyes as he sang alone, all alone, I am on my own in this performance and I was reminded I hadn’t felt this come over by a live TV performance in a long time.

These songs were as imperfectly perfect as the above reviewer had depicted and to say I was eager to hear them live so early in the band’s career was an understatement. That brilliant venue you ride a lift to get to? The one with the magnificent view across the Thames through the back window? Kings College London?? Yes please. So few bands play here these days it’s a crying shame and I didn’t hesitate in buying tickets to what promised to be a gig and a half. Off I trundled to Kings College with Rowena in tow, having only heard the twoLater… performances and a demo of Blow It Up. They can’t have played for more than half an hour but squeezed in twelve songs, none resting in their quest to convert the intrigued and along-for-the-ride of the room.

The Strokes references had begun but I still couldn’t see it. Until I heard Post Break-Up Sex live that is. It’s the overall monotone sound that does it. How does a piece of music remain on the same level throughout but still be consumingly catchy and addictive? Norgaard I remember as being my favourite of the night. Another minute and a half of pure brilliance crammed with energy and rock and roll but what Wreckin Bar lacked in story was made up for here.

Rowena was still new to gigs at this point and I sure gave her a taste for it. What a way to begin. You know those gigs where you leave not wanting to listen to anything else for the rest of your life? I dug out my ipod on the tube home and played the two from Jools Holland I’d burned from YouTube on repeat all the way there. I can’t remember the last time I jumped up and down that much in thirty minutes.

A vital element struck me and that first gig of theirs changed something in me. Their music was the perfect blend of everything I needed at that time that I hadn’t truly felt since hearing Geraldine by Glasvegas for the first time in 2008. The album was instantly brilliant, each track catchy as hell with potential to be a single. I remember where I was and what I was doing the first time I heard it and I remember marvelling at how certain notes played in certain songs rubbed me entirely the right way. I struggled not to play Under Your Thumb on repeat, at least not until I’d heard the rest of the album first, I was that taken with the song. I still melt at the way Justin croons the word “rocks” in You’re on the rocks line in Wolf Pack from the recording I made at their (first night, though I went to both) Electric Ballroom gigs in April. Barely breathing or managing to get my words out when meeting them in HMV.

My, and seemingly the country’s, latest obsession wrote an album I could connect with for the pure reason of being young. Songs about break-ups and sex and growing up that also made you want to dance and shout the words back to at the same time, how could I not connect completely with such a record in a year I’d spent totally focussed on me and doing what I wanted to. When you’re young it doesn’t matter if times are good or bad because you have a good time through the pain anyway, and that’s what I feel these songs completely encompass, overcoming the sometimes sad underlying pain and elevating it into two minutes of pure unadulterated fun. That’s what I get from this band. And who the hell knows what Wreckin Bar’s about anyway, it’s still the best song I’ve heard all year.

On 2011 went and The Vaccines did not relent in playing live shows. I heard they did 250 this year, wowza. Sadly, it’s something you can both see and hear in their performance. That gig we saw in January was one in a million, I didn’t go to another this year that made me feel so energised or eager for what was to come. Take the Jools Holland performance and say… when they performed on The Jo Whiley Show on Sky Arts last month. Watch the two back to back and tell me you don’t notice the difference. Playing the same songs two hundred and fifty times or more in three hundred and sixty five certainly takes its toll. In November 2010 If You Wanna was sad and impassioned and left you reeling “Yes…this is how I’ve felt after every break-up. Finally, infinitely it’s been put into song”. Now when they play the song feels more of a novelty “Oh it’s the one we all jump up and down at”. Justin sings it differently, he’s going through the motions rather than still believing.

Not to say they’re not a brilliant live band or that I’ll be first in the queue to buy tickets next time they play, but there’s a reason I decided not to see them at Brixton a month ago. Yes they’ve come so far this year and yes I’m really really happy for them, but I knew they wouldn’t play like they did in January, back when it was all new and the three hundred and fifty capacity of Kings College felt like a huge venue and Justin sang each word nervously and they were all crammed together on the stage. All emotion has gone from The Vaccines’ performances. I saw them eleven times this year and while they were still as good in April (playing at their peak you could say as the band came into their own and grew with confidence) by festival season the words began to slide and some were sung lazily.

This happened to with Glasvegas and I expect lots of other bands to. Maybe this is one of the drawbacks of seeing a band so many times in a short space of time, maybe I should be less greedy with my ticket buying? It does allow you however to really get to know a band’s live performance. They’re still my band of the year regardless, for that first gig and the album (though yes, I admit If You Wanna is a little over-produced) and I can’t wait to hear the new songs they come up with. That Primal Urges is a corker.

(Source: Flickr / emilyrowan)