Good old Nottingham Contemporary regularly hosts live music events in the café bar, and you’ve got to love that a lot of them are absolutely free to get in to. It’s a low risk situation where the worst thing that can happen is you think the band is awful and get stuck for two minutes trying to escape said horridness because some muppet with their back to you won’t move out the way. Best case scenario, you come away loving a brand new band and life.
I didn’t go in to the Contemporary on Saturday completely blind, I’d had the pleasure of I Am Lono and 8mm Orchestra’s company before, so they were pretty safe bets. Strolling in while the former were playing, I popped to the bar assuming I could enjoy the rest of the set with a beer. Unfortunately, I had read the event page wrong and only caught half of their final song. I was a bit gutted as they sounded like they were on form. Hey ho, always double check these things and other good advice.
Revenge of Calculon - Photo by David Parry
It was the next band that I was most anticipating, though. Formed by two Spaceships Are Cool cadets, Revenge of Calculon are a lo-fi synth and bass duo who live life in retro. They arrived on stage resplendent in eighties Adidas tracksuits and luchador masks which made me wonder what came first, the band or the visual concept. After a few technical hiccups that meant two false starts, the audience were suitably teased.
Hitting it low and fuzzy, they were blasting out some lovely funk-filled pop and giving it to us like it was 1996 or something and they’d been having it off with Bentley Rhythm Ace. If we weren’t all so bloody British we would have been jumping around like nutters to these guys. We may have all been far too reserved for what they were giving, but the bassist tried to make up for it with some almost impressive body popping mid-song. They mixed up their grooves with samples and visuals that, of course, included some luchador films. They ended their set with a dirty cover of the one-hit wonder Whale’s Hobo Humping Slobo Babe – check out Revenge of Calculon’s, it’s much better.
After adding RoC to my list of bands I should definitely catch again, it was 8mm Orchestra’s turn to shine. Quite disappointingly, they hadn’t dressed the stage in their usual fairy lights. They did however deliver their usual helping of confusing epic rock that has you metaphorically floating in an isolation tank before tipping you right on your head and asking you to mosh like your life depends upon it. The switch from laid back to frantic is never too jarring, but you’ve got to be up for a bit of an up and down ride when you’re listening to them. Altogether, a bloody good show that proved that the fairy lights aren’t the stars on their stage. But do bring them back, they’re nice.
I Am Lono, Revenge of Calculon and 8mm Orchestra played at Nottingham Contemporary on Saturday 23 August 2014.
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