kate Nash | livemusic.fm

Kate Nash at Review

kate Nash

3/5
Bands: Kate Nash
Venue:
Gig: Kate Nash @ Stage 2
Gig date: 30th October 2007
Posted on 10th March 2010 by GOD

One of pop's most curious phenomenons sees formerly squeaky pop stars rebelling against what made them famous. Just as the manufactured Monkees ended up singing psychedelic songs about porpoises, the once-melodic Marianne Faithfull switched to heroin-ravaged salvos about fellatio. Similarly, in 2007, Kate Nash was a 20-year-old Brits school pupil whose faux Cockney narratives about boyfriends invited not always flattering comparisons with Lily Allen. Three years on, Nash dates Ryan Jarman from Wakefield rockers the Cribs, hangs out in indie circles, and has apparently been listening to Bikini Kill and Sonic Youth. While formerly happier behind the piano, she spends most of this gig playing guitar, which is not without its problems. At one point, the drummer has to rush up to help her with a complex technical manoeuvre. "Ooh, the volume button!" she laughs. Nash seems nervous, as you might if you were roadtesting an edgier new direction in front of a crowd close enough to smell your fear. But her breathlessness adds a certain resonance to songs about inadequacy and self-loathing. Some of her new material – particularly the sparkly Do Wah Doo – sound as if she's been inspired by Motown girl groups, others are more baffling. I Love You More finds her shrieking over walls of feedback. I Know a Secret is an unlikely but successful psychedelic odyssey about homophobia. I Hate Seagulls finds an unfortunate illustration when a young girl takes the "I hate being sick" line literally and vomits in front of the stage, which one hopes is not an allergic reaction to some of Nash's voyages away from her trademark narratives into proper, if slightly karaokeish, singing. But nothing is quite as berserk as the Mansion Song. Apparently inspired by an encounter with a groupie, this surely to-be-much-talked-about Slitsesque monologue is a litany of degradation-turned-feminist manifesto (about being "fucked" in "dirty knickers", seeking "debauchery" and, bizarrely, "reading the Guardian"), which manages to be uncomfortable, cringeworthy and yet quite compelling. Which pretty much sums up the Kate Nash of 2010. While her fans seem to be cheering and scratching their heads in equal doses, she refuses requests to perform her biggest hit, Foundations. Instead, she executes two exaggerated twirls clad in what looks like a Mod version of one of 1970s Greek balladeer Demis Roussos's kaftans, and seems in no rush to leave the stage Dave Simpson http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/mar/08/kate-nash-pop-review

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