Jonathan Geddes Star rating *** The ABC and the Black Kids seemed an ideal match. The venue does, after all, possess a large discoball and, while the Black Kids aren't musically inclined in that direction, the trendy Jacksonville quintet do focus on producing groove-laden songs aimed at getting people moving.
The gig's party environment only increased when the Ghostbusters theme was blasted out prior to the band's appearance, which made it all the more surprising that the group's initial songs were met with audience apathy. Some of the fault for this lies with the five-piece themselves, as the opening Look At Me (When I Rock Wichoo) was engulfed by its own synths and Partie Traumatic sounded too much like a rejected B-52s offering.
Thankfully, as the performance went on the Black Kids did show substance behind the hype that has surrounded them all year. I've Underestimated My Charm (Again) was brilliantly invigorating, complete with its detour into a Lust For Life-esque bass line and Ronettes-style backing vocals.The providers of those vocals, Ali Youngblood and Dawn Watley, give the band extra pep live, dancing and clapping with an energy fitting the actual songs but lacking in the rest of the group's movements, sans the odd twirl from yelping vocalist Reggie Youngblood.
But it took superb former singles I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You and Hurricane Jane to truly enliven the crowd, the latter managing to be both a hymn of self-loathing and a suitably funky piece of pop. However, there was a frustrating lack of variety present, meaning that while the songs were enjoyable, they also seemed repetitive and the 50-minute set entertaining rather than excellent.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article