Gig played on 26/10/05

Just what is it about Americans and Duran Duran? For some unfathomable reason, our colonial cousins view the Birmingham quintet as rock deities on a par with The Beatles, whereas most of us view them as everything that was wrong about the 80s. After the over-polished and underwhelming "Welcome To The Monkey House" - produced by Nick Rhodes - it seems The Dandy Warhols have finally got round to our way of thinking but sadly their response has been to release the confused and sprawling mess that is the bizarrely christened "Odditorium Or Warlords Of Mars". Make no mistake; this bears all the hallmarks of a very dull evening.

Or so you'd think. It's almost as if The Dandy Warhols have been hit by a moment of clarity between joints and decided to go for broke; it's easy to forget that this band of frazzled stoners possesses something of an awesome arsenal and tonight The Dandy Warhols deploy it to great effect. Focussing on their more circumspect and memorable moments, The Dandy Warhols pursue a crowd-pleasing strategy with a few concessions to their more baked impulses.

"Not If You Were The Last Junkie On Earth" makes an early appearance, the band self-assuredly knowing that there's more where that came from, though you'd think that Zia McCabe might've learned the lead synth line by now. Likewise guitarist Peter Holmstrom, who can't be bothered with "Smoke It"'s twisting riff, but hey, when it sounds like a cross between the 1988 models of Spacemen 3 and Jesus & Mary Chain, who's complaining?

The biggest surprise comes from "You Were The Last High" which tonight drops the polish of the original to become an example of sparkling dream-pop before segueing into the spaced-out Eastern drones and huge guitar washes of "Godless". Indeed, as exemplified by "Boys Better" and "Love Is The New Feel Awful", The Dandy Warhols produce entry-level head music, a gateway to the magical joys of feedback, drones and single chords being bashed out over 20 minutes to the backing of repetitive, metronomic beats and for that alone we should be grateful; not so much cathedrals of sound then, as medium-sized places of multi-faith worship.

Meanwhile, Courtney Taylor-Taylor is less languid than usual and it's probably just as well that his request for a joint falls on deaf ears as it propels him to put extra effort into a rollicking "Get Off" and the obligatory "Bohemian Like You". So, despite rumours to the contrary, there's enough evidence on show tonight that The Dandy Warhols still have plenty to give before the appearance of the inevitable Greatest Hits package.

by James Marshall