DREAM WIFE, PRIMA QUEEN & SWIMSUIT COMPETITION
Mark Stimpson
With just five days notice, tonight’s extravaganza has changed date and venue, from a Friday to a Wednesday and from the Waterfront to Epic. Now a Wednesday night is not ideal but this does gives us the chance to enjoy Epic’s epic light show!
Anyway, enough of that and on to the bands. First up, it’s Colchester’s SWIMSUIT COMPETITION and their enjoyable take on indie. At their best, they combine angular post-punk with classic rock, kinda like Wire covering Fleetwood Mac. There are hints of a more muscular Belle And Sebastian, while Amber Scott’s voice reminds me Kate (Long Blondes) Jackson . Some Days has a touch of Sex On Fire about it whilst Wasted manages to combine (the mighty) Gaffa Tape Sandy with the closing jam of Skynyrd’s Freebird, which is a Very Good Thing. I have to say it took me a few songs to warm to Swimsuit Competition but they had won me over by the end of the set. Good stuff.
PRIMA QUEEN play jaunty, jangly, country pop. They are very good at what they do, the harmonies are gorgeous and there is some wonderful drumming. For the most part, though, it is a touch too polite for my ears. Musically, that is. Some of the lyrics are distinctly earthy and are more suitable to the rockin’ Drive-By Truckers-style country rock sound that appears once or twice in the set. But hey! Music is a personal thing, those are just my opinions and I’ll be far from unhappy when I hear Prima Queen again.
Headliners DREAM WIFE deliver something completely unexpected. Whilst I was expecting a fierce set, what I was not anticipating was how much of an arena rock/glam metal show this would be. Not in sound but in the performance. The high-kicking and movement throughout the set, along with the divide-the-audience-in-half-shoutalong during an extended Sport, could have been straight outta the David Lee Roth playbook. The interplay between Alice’s guitar and Bella’s bass in an extended instrumental break was the kinda thing Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan did backing up DLR at Wembley back in ’88 but stripped of the fretwanking, crotch-thrusting, macho bullshit. (And I am old enough that I saw Roth at Wembley - and a fair few similar acts - in my youth and these references are very much meant as a compliment.)
Switching from from raging punk to pure pop and back again, often several times in one song, is a tough trick to pull off and few do it with the aplomb of Dream Wife. Vocalist Rakel quotes from Soice Girls’ Wannabe in F.U.U.C and it could be argued that Dream Wife are the ultimate expression of Girl Power but then, as vocalist Rakel says, gender is a construct and anyone can be a Bad Bitch.
The trio (plus drummer Alex) are clearly having fun and project a sense of sheer enjoyment that far too many bands seem to miss. And that makes this one of the joyous sets I have seen for a while.
