Review - NEW YOUNG PONY CLUB, Glasgow QMU, 26.09.07
Tahita Bulmer is hyperactive and it’s infectious. Taking to the stage with Hawaiian grace on fast forward tinged with suggestiveness that could spark the type of curiosity that killed the cat, she looked like she should be wearing a straw skirt and a naughty smile while sipping a cocktail from a coconut. Her exotic appeal is a powerful stimulant that instantly compels you to move your body and grin.
She is the singer of the prestigious Mercury Music award nominees New Young Pony Club and is fast gaining a reputation as a powerful performer. By the time the band played their hit single Ice Cream, three songs in, a song that many will be familiar with due to its use in a television advert for PC’s, where young attractive models danced around in a manner not unlike Tahita herself, the charismatic singer had the entire audience writhing along with her to the pulsing electronic beat.
The student setting of Glasgow University’s QMU was a perfect venue for such a student friendly band. They have quickly become the cover girls for the NME and Q magazine, as they are as attractive and stylish as they are talented. Lou Hayter on the keyboard could be made from porcelain while drummer Sarah Jones has the sultry predator look that warns she may bite. The London-based quintet is completed by the almost forgotten rough and ready guitarists Andy Spence – who is the band's chief music writer and producer - and Igor Volk who are quite happy enough to slip into the background and play while the others take to the forefront in their own conspicuous fashion. The Tahita clones were out in force and their guru didn’t disappoint, neither did the band's electronically driven music.
Songs like the sexually charged Hiding On the Staircase, which contains the continuously quoted lyric “It’s the sound of revolution in the bedroom” and a fun and quirky cover of Technotronic's Pump up the Jams were crowd pleasers but it was the climactic song The Bomb that was particularly impressive with its throbbing bass and psychedelic synths swelling and up surging in crescendo to the point of explosion while below the lighting the band glittered like diamonds under the holiest of moonlight.
By the end of the show Ms Bulmer had thrown herself to her minions by hurling her body into the crowd. After a few minutes she was spotted and plucked from the pack by a burly security guard and the smile on her face was irresistible. It was near impossible to not smile back.
PE.
