Saturday 9 February 2002

Perhaps you were at home with mum and dad watching "Pop Idol" or maybe the rain was just too off-putting, whatever you missed a good gig. A small but perfectly behaved audience gathered to support Mob Curious and Maya29 at the Yo-Ho. I've been away dodgin' an' weavin'. Imagine my surprise to find the
Yo-Ho is still the only venue in Lancaster doing anything original. Before the gig I¹d been earholing Bob Harries on Radio 2 extolling the genius of Pink Floyd so both bands were up against it as far as this reviewer was concerned.

First up came Mob Curious: That rare thing in today's world of artificially inseminated pop: A creative band that in its lyrical originality has more alliance to the cutting edge world of Sound-As-Art than the dross-ville of today's manufactured music industry. There is something of Edward Munch's "Scream" in each song. The world is a dark and forbidding place where only
belief in the uniqueness of self redeems. This was a tight set from Mob Curious that included several new songs and the blistering instrumental "No Brakes" that some are calling "mediaeval".  "Rifle Shooting For the Blind" put me in mind of King Crimson. Not because I thought it was derivative but
because Mob Curious have a clever knack of occasionally referencing other bands and hinting at the clichés of pop without ever sounding clichéd themselves. This is a band that thinks about its message. Each song is a musical seduction, starting with a tight guitar riff riding on broken rhythms that build and break suddenly into another melodic flow. Their lyrics are redolent of long Saturday nights of the soul that end walking on
wet early Sunday morning streets. Particularly liked "Stay Away From The light" with the line "Other people¹s faces pass like clouds across my own", and "Cummings", a largely improvised lyric from Nick Camm that includes the line "And the sun was just upsetting" and ends with a nod at Hendrix and "The Star Spangled Banner". You often have the feeling you¹ve been let in on something very personal with Mob Curious. It¹s a privilege. These people, unlike many, are not only thinking but thinking out loud.

Based in Edinburgh Maya29 travelled a long way to get to this gig and despite the small audience played as though the room was heaving. They are up against the same vacuity that we met in the early 70¹s when The Wombles ruled the world. The band, a four-piece comprising guitar, drums, bass and female vocals from Kae (aka Loudmouth), pumped out a well competent driving
guitar-led sound. Sadly, for me, it was a sound gone-by, mostly underpinned by the amplified white noise of thrash. A sound that was interesting but not, on this occasion, interesting enough. A heavy Led Zep guitar pump. The problem with power-driven guitar riffs is that the good ones were devised in the 70¹s and the rest now seem imitation. Their best track was undoubtedly "Monkeys" - A poppy song with a great driving beat to it and interesting lyrics ("You¹re walking through this jungle now") when they could be heard: Kae is a strong singer whose vocals could have been improved by getting them nearer the front of the mix. Why so shy? Maya29, like the England football team of the 70¹s, were good but you just couldn¹t understand why they couldn't win when it mattered.

As for the poor turnout: Lancaster should be ashamed of itself. Both bands deserved a better audience.

Ricky Storm (& Bernadette)