The Whitest Boy Alive live review
The last time Erlend Øye was playing debut gigs in the UK, it was with his first band, Kings of Convenience, seven years ago. When they arrived on these shores late in 2000, Badly Drawn Boy was the king of the Mercury Prize and, accordingly, ugly men playing acoustic guitars were fleetingly hip. Kings of Convenience’s interpretation of the scene was deliberately less cool and more fragile than any of their contemporaries, and in the same year that Alan McGee famously branded a nascent Coldplay as “bed-wetters”, Øye’s sheets were positively soaked.
Fast-forward to 2007, and Øye’s chameleon characteristics appear. As Klaxons hold the Mercury Prize and their all-conquering glow-stick indie dominates, Øye has once again positioned himself at the geekiest end of the current on-trend genre with Whitest Boy Alive. The world has moved on, and so has Øye – with the same degree of misalignment from the day’s current fad.
But to accuse him of bandwagon-jumping would be disingenuous; although his timing appears impeccable, Whitest Boy Alive have more in common with the jerk-free, blissful production of Nightmares On Wax or Röyksopp, with whom Øye worked five years ago, than with anything currently coming straight outta New Cross. They are also far more impressive musicians, shunning pedals, computers and stage trickery for a pleasingly simple and metronomically tight line-up that offers an honesty to complement Øye’s entirely absent bravado.
And this anti-frontman charisma is clearly Whitest Boy Alive’s most potent weapon. When the set starts to sag about an hour in, Øye’s clumsy charm carries the devoted crowd through, and there’s rapture nearer the end when he pauses to remove his specs before dancing with what should charitably be described as more zeal than coordination. Of most interest, though, is that in the space of a debut show, Øye has debunked the current received wisdom that indie-dance must be played by neon-clad teenage space cadets. The only logical question now is which genre he will nerdify next.
