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Madness - Whisky, Los Angeles
SKA TREK: to boldly go where a lot of others have gone before, but to do it in such a way that you either think they haven't or don't give a shit whether they have or not.
Madness's second visit to Los Angeles (last time around they were on the bottom of the bill at the Whisky and went over so well that they were invited back the next night as headliners, like tonight) was bloody marvellous. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue-beat, performed, nay transformed, with large helpings of cocky self-confidence and total abandon by what looks like a family victim of gene mutation: no hair, double-jointed and wide maniacal grins; they'll love them in the deep South.
Seven people going loony onstage while an outbreak of terminal bopping below turns laid-back LA into a seething smiling mass of insanity. The whole thing from start to finish ('One Step Beyond' both times) was like some gloriously unselfconscious practical joke were it not for the fact that the musicianship was (seriously) good.
It was what you might call a moving performance. Like the Specials before them on this very same half-crown-sized stage, no-one except the drummer (and he did his best) stayed in the same place for more than a second. Everything was choreographed to grinning perfection, be it the paper cup chucked at Chas turning into a dance-routine collapse when it landed a bullseye, or the balloon (left over from the Specials) doing the rounds in the first few songs. Audience participation from the word go - practically every tune prefaced with a dedication or an explanation or a nudge-wink conspiratorial leer or all of the above, very gorblimey, perfect in a club setting. It didn't let up for a minute.
Hard to pick out best songs when they all merged into each other so well and so memorably: 'Believe Me' ("this is a song full of love and happiness") 'My Girl' ("for all the young lovers in the audience"), 'In The Middle Of The Night' ("naughty things happen"), 'The Prince' ("guess who this one's dedicated to"), 'Night Boat To Cairo', complete with foghorns, raspy sax (the guy even gets to sing a couple of times). Visual highlights were the choreographed bit where they take head-bashing (something dear to the US heart) seriously during a Popeye-doing-Morris-dances bit to the Nutcracker Suite, while bashing heads with the roadie (who then has to rush off and mend a totalled mike, poor bloke) and 'Madness', where various boppers offstage decide to become various boppers onstage, one punkette (subsequently removed from the venue) trying to kill everyone in the front row with her lethal boots. I escaped to the back as the band escaped upstairs, but they were called back for more, two songs including a new one whose title I didn't catch; for them almost downtempo.
All this and a second set that was as hot if not hotter the same night. Insanity set to music is fine by me. What I can't understand is why their LP has vanished off the American market the way that it has. If tonight's bunch were anything to go by, they should be in the next league here in no time.
Suggsy gropes for the middle distance.
- Contributed by Graeme Sharpe
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