What came first – the Chicken or the Egg? 

That’s the question I’m to ask myself after seeing Kosheen play at Metro City last Tuesday night.  Have I been SO woefully sick for the ensuing/subsequent week (shivering from successive fevers/pumped chock full of antibiotics/hacking up huge glimmering globules of phlegm) BECAUSE of Tuesday night’s performance (the “Chicken”)?  Or did these tick-tocking-time-bomb fevers/chills/phlegmatics unwillingly colour my perspective of the Kosheen show (the “Egg”)?  In any event – I ambled along to witness Kosheen on the Tuesday night in question.  Their performance and setup were stupendously underwhelming.  I was already more than a little ill that evening – yet seemingly on the road to recovery.  The next day I became very VERY ill (am still very VERY ill).  Coincidence?  Or Not?  The jury is out peoples.  The jury is out…

On with the review:
Evening began on a comparatively high note with the sonic shenanigans of Endorphin.  If you’ve never beheld the incredibly polite bald-domed-one doing his thing – then my friends you simply haven’t seen a show.  Awesome animation displays.  Interpretive dance (from best pal Ivan).  Sounds that even my little metal-loving friend found of interest.  Fascinatingly dense music.  A truly all-round experience.   

Highlights of the show: 
A Cirque du Soleil type figure removing mask after mask after mask from his face.  Sex and Violence (”..makes the world go round..”).  Animation projected over the top of the mixing desk featuring classical Disney/Animation figures (Mowgli/Snow-White/Seven Dwarves/Felix).  Dancing and cavorting in time to the music.  A cover of Icehouse’s – Great Southern Land.  Psychedelic living moving wallpaper.  A big bald white-painted whirling man.  Spin.  Spin.  Spin.  Showing a more-than-decent amount of package to the punters.  Rewind.  Fantastic lighting.  Mirage.  Eastern flavours.  Free your mind.  Dedicated to John Howard because: “I don’t like him..”  Enter a dancer dressed as a shiny silver Michelin Man.  Johnny Howard’s smugly-grinning face on his mug.  Long flowing swirly tassels on his tits.  ”..it aint no big fucking deal..”  the song says.  In a politically-charged finale Endorphin dons a Bush mask.  Sidles up behind our Johnny.  Takes him roughly.  Cowboy style.  Yeehaw.  And they say Family-Variety-Style-Entertainment is dead…  Fools.

The night drew ever onward.  As did my lethargy and general disillusionment.  Breath harsh and ragged.  Sweat dotting my brow like acne.  Eyes whirling round and round their sockets like Scalectrix loop-the-loops.  Was it time for Kosheen yet?  No.  Nope.  Nada.  Instead – come eleven o’clock or afters – Dj Flex takes the stage at the Metro.  It may have been the excess Cold’n’Flu tablets in my system or the Badder-than-Bad-Bad-Ju-Ju in my mind – but Flex seemingly played snippets of the same song over and over.  Beep.  Beep.  Bump.  Bump.  For far longer than his promised half-hour playing time.  Good God man don’t you realise it’s a weekday?  It was Late Night Ambar Beats and Breaks – in a School-Night City Metropolis setting.  Something seemed amiss.  The chemicals in my blood not the type required to enjoy this kind of palaver.  I grabbed an edge of the bar to steady myself.  Like the jingle of my aforementioned Cold’n’Flu tabs – I vowed to “soldier on...”

Flex flees.  Kosheen appears.  Sian Evans strolling out on stage as the clock approaches the Witching Hour.  Her garb some less-than-flattering evening-style attire.  I know this is a musical rather than fashion forum but by God she looked horrid.  All lumps and bumps and nodules.  It was like an outfit sharked from the maternity section.  Behind her on deck duty – dwelling deep in the darkness – Markee Substance or Darren Decoder.  One of the two.  Twas never announced.  And was hard to make out their faces behind Sian’s voluminous blouse.

If the visuals were less-than-impressive the sound was even worse.  Launching straight into “Catch You” not a sound could be heard from Sian’s munted microphone.  Backing vocals were clearly audible – yet strain and heave as she might nothing emerged but a faint little chorus in the background.  Added to this – every couple of minutes or so the bass would produce an enormous blast of feedback – almost knocking me from my precarious perch at the bar.  Ouch.  These sonic shortcomings disgruntling not just the crowd – but those on stage as well.  “Let’s sort this fucking sound system out right now...” Sian snarled in the first clear example of the power of her voice.  Moments later things were up and running again.  So what did they do?  Well repeat their first song of course…

There was obviously a carved-in-stone set list that Kosheen were NOT prepared to deviate from this evening.  Running through “Catch You” they pulled out the crowd favourite “Hide You” for the second track.  Followed it with a bit of “Hungry” (with yet more outbursts of booming bass feedback) and “It’s all in my Head..” 

Then that was it…

Four vocal tracks in.  Sian was gone.  Darren/Markee left to close things out on the decks.  Perhaps the shortest headlining performance I’d ever witnessed.  There’d been very little on display to demonstrate why it was that Kosheen had been one of the early noughties most popular dance-crossover acts.  A strong vocalist.  Catchy tunes.  Great bass and beats.  Far too little to justify the trip downtown to catch them.  Far too little indeed.  Given that it was already after midnight I wasn’t even prepared to hang around and see if Sian’d re-emerge later.  Not with yet another Beats and Breaks endurance fest pumping out of the sound system courtesy of her fellow Kosheen-er.  I took her lead and fled into the night (and into the arms of my waiting Viral Infection).

The most disappointing gig of the season.  I thought it’d be hard to top Blackalicious or the Milkbar Stars at Rosemount (that gig was only two songs long!!).  But Kosheen certainly managed to lower the proverbial bar.

Heronimous Wang