PALAYE ROYALE, COUNTERFEIT, CHARMING LIARS, Shepherd’s Bush 2020

The Charming Liars are commercial polished pop rock with a good command of the audience who are definitely already on side. There’s a slight boy band feel about the line up tonight the crowd being mainly teens some accompanied by parents. The band earn huge brownie points with the audience by waiting by the merch desk, not a common sight at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, indeed I don’t think I have ever seen it before.

Counterfeit are a people orientated band and vocalist Jamie Campbell Bower speaks to the crowd without condescension about topics that appear to be well meaning and received such as drug addiction, alcoholism and depression, also mental illness  and not letting the media and the system get you down.  All his comments are met with hysterical screaming and I do wonder if he had said that his cat shit in his shoes if he would have got the same reaction as he seemed to be quite popular. Nevertheless it does come across as genuine and heartfelt and certainly were positive sentiments I could endorse. Musically they were pretty good too ‘Alive’ being a 2020 version of an 80s lighter ballad, but brought up to date and receiving little glow worms of light from a thousand cells instead. Bower is very millennial friendly in his long baggy jumper, looking like Rick Mayall’s son with a Kurt Cobain hair cut and DJ headphones. He ventures into the sea of teens and there is automatically a surge towards him. I was pretty glad I was on the balcony a wise choice I was glad to have made. Although I didn’t think it was possible, he looked even more tousled when he got out which was quite a struggle. They were good live and I would happily see them again.

But the Piece De Resistance were Palaye Royale who elicited Beatles style screams from the crowd just upon a mere glimpse of them backstage before they came on. They were super energetic and interesting to watch. They have hoovered up elements from rock and punk from the last five or six decades and parceled it up for the young and impressionable, so there’s a bit of Johnny Rotten, Plastic Bertrand and Iggy Pop, mixed with a lot of Stones, Chuck Berry, glam rock/hair metal, Emo and Goth and a bit of ‘Hey Hey Hey’ metal style crowd encouragement. Something for everyone. I was impressed, however, that although self titled ‘The Bastards’ they showed a lot of consideration for the crowd when a couple of girls fainted and for disabled members of the crowd in a warm hearted millennial/modern hippy fashion and Vocalist Remington Leith said he was gonna cry for seeing so many happy faces (which as a hippy myself was very nice to see).

Material wise it was mostly songs from the first album and the latest ep and a few from the second album. It hung well together and the opener ‘Fucking With My Head’ was strong, nothing like a dash of teenage rebellion in the mix to get teens going, although it probably made a few parents in the audience wonder what they had got themselves into. Leith’s descent into the audience for ‘Ma Cherie’ brings the concert to a standstill as a girl falls over and along with his hanging by the balcony over the crowd 80 feet below by his knees twice with no safety net of any kind it all feels a little bit dangerous. That’s probably the point, however I hope none of his young teen followers decide to copy him. Certainly had he fell off he might have been killed and might have killed a few audience members and as soon as security can reach him on the balcony they march him back to the stage. So it’s an exciting show and luckily appeared to have ended without tears. ‘Fuck Donald Trump’ gets a huge cheer so they stick it to the man too which was a hugely popular move as well.

They get a massively loud call for an encore of ‘One More Song’ and Leith goes for a costume change coming back in an androgynous mini kilt with cycling shorts to perform ‘Mr
Doctor Man’ and ‘Get Higher’. The reason becomes clear when he starts hanging upside down as a party trick. A young millennial punk with purple hair crowdsurfs and almost gets a hug from the singer, but just like a tidal wave Security sweep him away a millisecond before, so he does it again, this time securing at least a handshake before he shakes his fist jubilantly as he is escorted out. At this point the whole balcony is literally shaking with people jumping up and down which I have never experienced before at the Empire.

 

And the band are all ridiculously good looking especially guitarist Sebastian Danzig who looks like the love child of
Nigel Mogg and Ron Wood a particular favourite type of mine.  So the show is exciting and sexy and brings back an element of danger and transgression that perhaps has been lost in stadium shows of giant rock stars where liability would be the first thing on everyone’s minds.

 

I was very pleased to see Danzig and drummer Emerson Barrett outside taking pictures and meeting fans till they were satiated after the show in the bitter February weather. Again something I have never seen before at the Empire. So many young smiling faces again was great to see. If this show was anything to go by wading into the crowd and unrestricted ad hoc meet and greets may become a thing of the past for this band at some point due to the sheer hysteria it may cause. This is a band on the up and if you’re over thirty you’ll still love em, but unless you are Peter Pan you just might feel like a bit of a grandparent at their shows.

 

Dawn Osborne