By Dan O’Farrell.
What kind of horse can change the world? A Trojan horse, of course. Well, tonight at a packed Joiners, a full crowd witnessed some excellent horse-play, with Welly, the bounciest of pop-bands, smuggling some sharp, savvy and important messages beneath an hour’s worth of sing-a-long anthems (15/9/24). Sometimes you get to see a performance that reminds even the most jaded gig-goer why it’s a good move to drag yourself off your sofa and go watch something fresh. Tonight was one of those nights.
Lurker kicks off the night, a likeable, self-deprecating singer-songwriter surrounded by flickering fake candles but with a voice of real Mark Lanegan-esque depth and Americana-inflected songs that – on first listen, at least – seemed to chart the darkest sides of addiction. He held the audience with his raw lyrics, no mean feat with a pop-happy crowd ready to pogo.
Next up were Eatboys, a raucous and confident blast of hard-rock with an all-female front-line and some tangible, righteous anger in their lyrics. The band grew into their swagger as the set went on and, by their last song – ‘Pity Party’ – found a sweet-spot where their punk energy was matched by the groove and the lyrics. One to watch.
So…Welly. It’s my second experience of seeing this band live after attending the Goo Records night that they head-lined at Heartbreakers over a year ago. Back then, I was blown away and tonight I’ve dragged family members down here on the promise of ‘you’ve not seen anything like this for a long while’. Phew! Tonight Welly are an even more intensely brilliant live-act than I’d remembered.
Joy is a hard thing to muster, in any musical form, and particularly on an autumnal Sunday night in Southampton, but Welly manage to spread a joyous feeling from the moment they bound on stage (to the strains of ‘Amarillo’, no less). The audience immediately feels like we’re at a school-disco, a concept continued by singer Elliot’s habitual PE-teacher get-up of track-suit and whistle and the rest of the band’s motley dress-up collection of PE-kits and summer-uniform dresses. What other band brings its own set of disco-lights and bunting, I ask you?
Amongst many master-strokes – counter-intuitively for the kind of high-energy Brit-pop infused racket they make – Welly’s decision to clear their stages of drum-kits and rely on a trusty drum-machine is possibly the most clever. It gives them room to jog, pogo and bounce around the stage, resulting in a fantastically kinetic performance where nobody in the band seems to stand still for more than a split-second: those PE kits aren’t just for show. If this is all they had going for them, however, the joke would undoubtedly grow thin over an hour. Luckily, the band have the memorable songs to make it all work.
Starting with the single ‘Cul-De-Sac’, Welly launch themselves through an album’s worth of top-notch pop-tunes with not a single moment where the energy saps or the catchiness falters. It all sounds like a surreal greatest hits album where a young Damian Albarn chants Ray Davies-style lyricism over a guitar-heavy dose of ‘Babies’-era Pulp, helpfully mixed with all the early Duran Duran singles played in a loop at once on Gary Numan’s stereo. It’s a sugar-candy rush of pop-smart energy.
To ears that heard all this the first time round, such a sugar-rush could also pall eventually – although the young-bloods in the mosh-pit would sincerely disagree – were it not for the aforementioned Trojan ponies. Welly’s lyrics smuggle a pleasingly sharp-pointed satire into the glorious pop. ‘Soaking Up The Culture’ twists the knife into ‘gaaap yaaar’ travel stories, whilst ‘Shopping’ skewers capitalist ennui with a barbed portrayal of every high street, everywhere. Arcade Fire might have successfully done something similar with ‘The Suburbs’, but those guys never queued up at the Chandlers Ford Costa. Welly have, and they’ve got something to say about it.
The satirical touches are helped by the fact that singer Elliot has the kind of charisma that forces all eyes and ears in the room to focus on his every utterance, and the whole thing is carried off with a wit and lightness of touch that helps the many political punches hit their targets.
I thoroughly recommend a dose of Welly for anyone feeling that music in 2024 doesn’t have anything fresh to say, or any new ways of saying it. Get yourself to a show and leave the place grinning and thinking. It’s great to have one – very rare to have both.
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