The Shortwave Set on stage at the Royal Festival Hall last night. Photograph: Mark Mawston.
When the Shortwave Set appeared on stage at the South Bank last night, the entire band were wearing pale yellow overalls. Which seemed quirkily appropriate to their outer space, mish-mash poppy, quasi-futuristic, 'Victorian funk', Sixties psychedelic, sample-heavy inventiveness.
With the applause following their opener, frontman Andrew Pettit, complete with moon boots, cracked a joke about how it was good to be appreciated, seeing as they had spent all day painting the set. This went down well at the time, but it was an unfortunate gag, as judging by the reaction of many in the audience through the gig, watching them live was indeed like listening to paint dry.
This was a shame, because their 2005 album, The Debt Collection, though not a big seller, was pleasingly different and well received, as was this year's more exposed follow-up, Replica Sun Machine. The work of effects specialist David Farrell is undoubtedly innovative, and has echoes of the Beta Band, the Avalanches and the Gentle People, with an added lugubrious twist. With the band performing from both albums, I was really looking forward to hearing earlier songs such as 'Slingshot', 'Is It Any Wonder' and 'Roadside', and this year's 'No Social' and 'Yesterday's to Come' on stage, but somehow, while the band seem to cut it so well in the studio, they don't seem to create even the slightest groove when live. But as David's turntable was skilfully and ironically wound down for an effect at the end of two songs, it seemed appropriate. Lovely equipment, but c'mon guys, people have paid to see you, and this is pop music and entertainment, isn't it?
The evening had begun strangely, with the languid, smoky style of support act Martina Topley-Bird, totteringly chaotic at times, but with wonderful vocal control at others. It seemed like an odd, rather nervy, low-key start to the night, and the Shortwave Set didn't deviate from this.
But let's be fair. The Shortwave Set did do a fine recent session on Marc Riley's 6Music show. Live, however, the vocals of Pettit and the big-booted Swedish singer Ulrika Bjorsne, with or without effects, are simply not strong or charismatic enough. It's tricky when few of your songs go faster than 60 bpm, which is the average heart rate when the human body drifts off to sleep. But even when the faster, upbeat new single 'Now til '69' came on, it didn't stir up much excitement either.
I feel bad about this, but it wasn't just me. About a third of the audience in the front section sleepily emptied out before the set ended. Even a rather excited, nay stimulated, arm-waving pair of enthusiasts, who stole their way from the back to the heady space of row D, and upset a few others along the way, got tired by the end. And then there was no encore. With the final song, Andrew apologetically repeated the same joke about going back to painting and decorating. Back to the studio, at any rate.
Meltdown is all about mixing diverse influences and audiences, the old and the new. So the oddness of the evening wasn't complete until we came across the contrastingly more lively middle-aged punk and largely male crowd coming out from seeing Stiff Little Fingers. In the aftershow, at the back of the Royal Festival Hall, we witnessed that loveable old shouter Mark Stewart and the Maffia doing some of his deafening early-Eighties dub anthems. As he absolutely murdered Blake's 'Jerusalem' as only he can, it felt like a fun, but confusing form of déjà vu time-travel. One thing's for sure, Meltdown really does live up to its name.
