Live Review from NME, Nov. 9th 2002

Electric 6 @ the Pressure Point, Brighton UK, 10.22.02

LIVE REVIEW The garage-rock invasion has had terrible consequences. Formerly mobbed muso-bars in Detroit now lie deserted other than for desperate-looking British A&R men asking directions for the Hotel Yorba. Bar bands who really should have given up the ghost long ago suddenly find themselves marketable. Electric Six know the score. Having trod the boards in Detroit in various guises (mostly as the Wild Bunch) since '96, they have not so much paid their dues as most of the mortgage.

As they shamble on stage in thrift-store suits, corkscrewed-haired singer Dick Valentine looks perplexed. "Maybe we should do our dancier numbers..." The timewarp blues starts up. "I've got something to put in you!" holler Dick. Unbelievably, in 'Gay Bar'.

Light relief comes with irrestible punk-disco single 'Danger! High Voltage'. The idiot younger brother to The Rapture's 'House of Jealous Lovers', it unleashes their barely-disguised comedy gene to full effect.

Hulking guitarist The Rock'n'Roll Indian smiles goofily, mirror-shaded lead guitarist Surge Joebot, cigarette drooping from his lower lip, morphs into a shaven-headed Slash. Dick, meanwhile, strips down to a T-shirt bearing the words "Rich & Sexy".

Having dragged Brighton down to their level, Dick leads the crowd in a hand-waving exercise and smiles from ear to ear. "I would just like to apologise for our president" he announces, before crashing into a version of Queen's 'Radio Ga Ga'.

They had the time, they had the power. They're yet to have their finest hour.

Paul Moody NME 9th November 2002