The Gossip @ Digital | livemusic.fm

Gossip at Brighton Digital Review

The Gossip @ Digital

4/5
Bands: Gossip
Venue: Brighton Digital
Gig: Gossip
Gig date: 27th May 2009
Posted on 13th June 2009 by johnbeyer

It might not look like it, given Beth Ditto's media ubiquity (negotiations are apparently under way with Timber and Sustainable Building Quarterly, the only UK magazine whose cover she has yet to grace), but the Gossip currently find themselves in a difficult position. Despite the more extravagant claims made on her behalf by a fashion press still agog at the baffling notion that someone can be both overweight and talented - "a visual emblem of new feminine possibility", etc - the fact remains that the Gossip are essentially a band famous for one, albeit fantastic, song. Furthermore, there's the question of how their old punk-rock fanbase will respond to a swanky major label deal and photos of their frontwoman in Heat with Kate Moss. Judging by tonight's reaction, the latter, at least, isn't going to be an issue. Nothing can dissuade the front row from pressing the Ditto flesh, up to and including the singer's admission that she's suffering from "the shits". ("You can take bets over which end it's going to come out of first," she advises.) They greet current single Heavy Cross with the same kind of enthusiasm they show Standing in the Way of Control, which seems fitting, not least because it's the same kind of song. Most of the new material sticks pretty fast to their big hit's disco-pogo blueprint, albeit filling in its outlines with different colours: some house-anthem piano here, some rather U2-ish guitar there. The uniformity of pace inevitably causes attention to focus on Ditto, which is not a problem. Case of the trots or not, she is hugely engaging, both because she is possessed of a fantastic voice - midway between southern soul belter, riot grrrl scream and the bleat of Poly Styrene from X-ray Spex - and because she is clearly born to be on stage. She can segue neatly from hosting an on-stage lesbian proposal of marriage to an unexpected R&B cover in a way that suggests that if the new album bombs, an alternative career hosting This Morning might be within reach: "I wonder what Aaliyah thought about gay marriage?" The Aaliyah cover - a version of Are You That Somebody? that transfers the original's spooked intensity from electronics to guitars - makes you wish there was more variety in their sound, but the marriage proposal emphasises that there's more to the Gossip than the standard indie-disco floorfiller. It doesn't answer the question of whether one hit wonder-dom beckons, but if nothing else, tonight's show reminds you that some people still become famous because they deserve it. Alexis Petridis http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/may/29/review-gossip-beth-ditto

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