The musical emodiment of energy rock Heaven

Energy can be explained in many different contexts. I put it to you that The Go! Team are the musical embodiment of energy. And enthusiasm. And pizzazz, joy and childlike wonderment.

They flew onto the stage with lead single ‘T.O.R.N.A.D.O.’ and immediately established a raucous carnival atmosphere, with band members bouncing all over the stage and crowd members bouncing all over each other. So much so that frontwoman Ninja even had to gave detailed visual instructions as to how to jump around without smacking into other people. Her crowd engagement was particularly impressive, as she encouraged people to dance at the appropriate moments (a lesson The Flaming “motherfucking” Lips could learn), evoked call and response and even returned to the stage to dance to the audience chants of ‘Ladyflash’ after the song had finished. Having something exciting to watch on stage is a useful way of turning a good concert into a memorable concert, so having Ninja jumping all over the speakers, strutting around the stage, high kicking and pulling shapes certainly added to the experience.

The setlist was a combination of the first and latest albums and drew from the best of their repertoire, using a concoction of distorted guitars, chanting, hip hop samples, crashing drums and charming woodwind solos. They essentially only had two types of songs – cute, mellow, childish songs sung by Kaori or Chi (‘Secretary Song’, ‘Ready To Go Steady’) and brash, shouty, bombastic songs rapped by Ninja (‘Titanic Vandalism’, ‘The Power Is On’), but that’s all they need for everyone involved to thoroughly enjoy themselves. Whilst they didn’t have space on stage for the full and varied instrumentation of the albums, they were still able to treat us to some delightful clavichord, typewriter and harmonica solos (tbh, there’s a reason why typewriters aren’t usually employed for soloing...) They kept the momentum going throughout, using noise freakouts to fill the space between songs and finally finished the set on ‘Rolling Blackouts’, which prompted Ninja to mount several of her bandmates in an attempt to steal their instruments (of course).

I can’t rate any other band more highly for live performance and considering that there’s been talk of this potentially being the last Go! Team album, it’s an experience to see as soon as possible.

When you go to see The Go! Team you don’t expect to be lumbered with a dreary, wishy-washy support band that barely look interested enough to finish a song. But that’s what ‘Banjo Or Freakout’ delivered, and they failed to supply even a single solitary banjo or freakout in their set, a challenge easily met by The Go! Team afterwards.

The surprise opening DJ set by Star Slinger was cheery, laidback and the music was relatively unmemorable, a common feature of most DJs supporting actual bands. His most endearing feature was the ‘slightly podgy Cousin It from the Adams Family wearing a sweater from his nan and throwing some hilarious dance moves’ look that he was sporting. And his mumblings in between songs about ‘treating your decks like your lover’ were made all the funnier because he kept whinging that his decks were too sensitive.