New Musical Express, March 12, 1983: Difference between revisions
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Wallop! When Skaville hits the smoke all hell breaks loose. Those precious rhythms stir young bodies, upful and enervating, penetrating to the deepest recesses of the seventh sense and unleashing a whirling mass of energetic celebration, dance carnage. Stomping boots and shuffling sneakers, Madness is all in the feet. | Wallop! When Skaville hits the smoke all hell breaks loose. Those precious rhythms stir young bodies, upful and enervating, penetrating to the deepest recesses of the seventh sense and unleashing a whirling mass of energetic celebration, dance carnage. Stomping boots and shuffling sneakers, Madness is all in the feet. | ||
Skaville hit the smoke Monday night at the Lyceum | Skaville hit the smoke Monday night at the Lyceum; Tuesday night at the Dominion is more like a matinee, presented in Tottenham Court Road's best pantomime setting, complete with 6.30 start and a Saturday Club audience buying popcorn in the foyer. Whereas the Lyceum gig was a rough and rowdy skanking free-for-all, the Dominion show was a tidy extravaganza, a supremely professional package for all the bairns perched smiling on the back of their seats. Madness at the Dominion was a BIG performance, grand theatre polished till it shone. | ||
Shame then that they took so long to get there... | Shame then that they took so long to get there... | ||
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Where minutes before they dragged, Madness ''tear'' thru' "Shut Up," one of their finest singles, maybe the most perfectly structured Nutty Cracker — a superlative contradiction indeed. It's as simple as Carl swivelling on his heels and counting to three. "One Two Three!" he counts (clever, huh?) and the audience responds. Madness! | Where minutes before they dragged, Madness ''tear'' thru' "Shut Up," one of their finest singles, maybe the most perfectly structured Nutty Cracker — a superlative contradiction indeed. It's as simple as Carl swivelling on his heels and counting to three. "One Two Three!" he counts (clever, huh?) and the audience responds. Madness! | ||
<!-- MADNESS!: Baggy Trousers (Nutty Crackers) | |||
MADNESS!: Madness (Nutty Crackers) | |||
MADNESS!: Our House (Nutty Crackers) --> | |||
Sublime — "Baggy Trousers" was, is and always will be. The Dominion has erupted in a dance explosion and the bairns are unstoppable, flailing madly and revelling in those little pangs of pleasure that only Madness can spark. Having set all the senses tingling, Madness finally stir the seventh sense, ''dance'', and leave the house grinning... | |||
<!-- MADNESS!: Primrose Hill (Nutty Crackers) | |||
MADNESS!: It Must Be Love (Nutty Crackers)... --> | |||
They return with a brass band. Pulling every trick and winning every time. Suggsy and Carl double-act like crazies, spurred on by an audience now similarly inclined. | |||
<!-- MADNESS!: Night Boat To Cairo (Nutty Crackers) | |||
ELVIS!!: Tomorrow's Just Another Day (Solid Gold) | |||
MADNESS!: One Step Beyond (Nutty Crackers) --> | |||
With band and audience finally on form, you know Madness will be back for a second encore. When Lee signals the 7's return with ''that'' long low blast of foghorn you know they'll be back for a third. | |||
"Night Boat To Cairo," from its moment of release, joined the list of ska classics; within it is contained the secret of pop — that moment when the skank slows to Woody's cymbals and Lee's sax and you just ''know...'' Wallop! That punctuated second waiting for the glorious thing to start again is the most wonderful moment this side of waiting for Elvis Presley to finish one of his long drawn out Sun-session vowels. | |||
Madness stretch the celebration by bringing on Elvis Costello to surpass his own treatment of "Tomorrow's Just Another Day" on the new 12". Suffice to say it was it was a masterful performance, vastly superior to the version Madness had played earlier in the evening. | |||
Elvis, ergo fabulous — Costello's voice is invariably overrated (the lad isn't exactly Howard Tate) and his songs have often seemed designed more to be studied as exercises in lyricism than to be sung, but tonight he made perfect sense to me. Costello was impressive even it Carl wins on good looks... | |||
"One Step Beyond" mercifully fell on hard and fast times in the latter part of the set. Shuffling fast and furious, taking time out from skit-miming to bellow the title at the rapt audience. Carl is contagious. The clamour for more when he jaunts off stage is as instantaneous as it is inevitable. | |||
<!-- MADNESS!: Mr Speaker (Nutty Crackers) | |||
MADNESS!: The Return Of The Los Palmas 7 (Nutty Crackers)... --> | |||
Carl comes back to address the young ones from a pulpit and Madness return for another encore. ''Whatever'' they play, they've won. | |||
They choose to bustle thru "Mr Speaker" (far stronger live than on record) and finish by playing a return visit to their fourth single, that cool, classy showcase for Barson's piano and Thompson's sax. They win easy. | |||
With the Selector split, The Beat apparently sunk and the Specials factions following other trails, Madness are all that remains of '79's dance explosion, the last train to Skaville. And though it was late arriving tonight, when it came, it came in skanking Trojan style. | |||
For all their wealth of recent four-square beat singles, offbeat Madness is still the best — those upful rhythms all the more precious in synth-ridden '83. It was those rhythms and their immaculate pop sensibilities that brought Madness singles by the chart-load and turned this evening at the Dominion from show to glorious showcase. | |||
Madness, the last of the skatellites, have followed a crucial tradition and built themselves an essential band, a corporal sound. a golden combination — Camden Motown. Not in terms of style or strength of emotion but, truly, in the seventh sense. | |||
Madness are Britain's finest dance band and the young ones know{{nb}}it. | |||
{{cx}} | |||
{{tags}}[[Madness]] {{-}} [[Dominion Theatre]] {{-}} [[Graham McPherson|Suggs]] {{-}} [[Carl Smyth]] {{-}} [[Mike Barson]] {{-}} [[Lee Thompson]] {{-}} [[Tomorrow's (Just Another Day)]] {{-}} [[Elvis Presley]] {{-}} [[Howard Tate]] {{-}} [[The Beat (band)]] {{-}} [[Dusty Springfield]] {{-}} [[Just A Memory|Losing You (Just A Memory)]] {{-}} [[Dusty Springfield: White Heat|White Heat]] {{-}} [[Graham Lock]] | |||
{{cx}} | |||
{{Bibliography notes header}} | {{Bibliography notes header}} | ||
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{{Bibliography notes}} | {{Bibliography notes}} | ||
{{Bibliography next | {{Bibliography next | ||
|prev = New Musical Express, | |prev = New Musical Express, February 26, 1983 | ||
|next = New Musical Express, | |next = New Musical Express, May 28, 1983 | ||
}} | }} | ||
'''New Musical Express, March 12, 1983 | '''New Musical Express, March 12, 1983 |
Latest revision as of 20:34, 1 May 2020
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