We Have Band- Live Review 15th January

We Have Band- Live at Crawdaddy.

We Have Band romped through their half-hour set at a breakneck speed on Thursday night. Dede WP plays tambourine like an Egyptian and looks like Margot Tennenbaum, crossed with Edie Sedgwick. Husband Thomas WP sings not unlike Jemaine Clement. Percussionist Darren Bancroft brings 80’s buzz cuts and spot-on offbeats. Current single, ‘Oh’ is a frenetic Korg-fuelled battle call to the dancefloor, while ‘Hear it in the Cans’ is Human League crossed with a bored Neanderthal beat. The group form a triangle around a drum machine, exhorting a half-empty room to dance. The unexpected whistling in ‘You Came Out’ breaks through the hipster cool, exposing the pop song roots. The room dances. This is what Hot Chip wished they sounded like live. A cover of the Pet Shop Boys’ ‘West End Girls’ closes the show. It was a fitting note to end on- a clever, hooky, synthy pop song, both knowing and insouciant at the same time. We Have Band are, as yet, unsigned. If they keep up at this rate, I can’t see that lasting long, at all.

Support on the night came in the form of Dublin Duck Dispensary – Bobby Aherne’s homage to Phil Spektor and mic hiss. Like the kid at school who pulls your hair then kisses you and runs away, D.D.D’s songs are short noisy bursts of pop distortion, each no longer than 3 minutes long, each 3 minutes too short.